After a confusing month, it is now clear what strategies are developing in Ukraine: we are seeing Vladimir Putin’s Plan B versus the Plan A de Joe Biden and Volodimir Zelensky’s Plan A. Let’s hope Biden and Zelensky succeed, because Putin’s possible Plan C it’s really scaryand I don’t even want to write what I’m afraid his Plan D would be.
I don’t have any secret sources in the Kremlin on this, just the experience of watching Putin operate in the Middle East for many years.
As such, it seems obvious to me that Putin, realizing that your Plan A has failed– His expectation that the Russian military would march into the Ukraine, behead its “Nazi” leadership, and then simply wait for the entire country to fall peacefully into the arms of Russia. – has switched to his Plan B.
Putin’s Plan B.
Plan B is that the Russian army deliberately shoot civilians Ukrainians, apartment blocks, hospitals, businesses, and even bomb shelters, all of which has happened in recent weeks, in order to encourage Ukrainians to flee their homes, creating a massive refugee crisis inside Ukraine and, more importantly, a massive refugee crisis within nearby NATO nations.
Putin, I suspect, is thinking that if he cannot occupy and control all of Ukraine by military means and simply impose his peace terms, the best thing would be to expel 5 or 10 million Ukrainian refugeesin particular women, children and the elderly to Poland, Hungary and Western Europe.
A person examines the remains of a residential complex after a strike in kyiv, Ukraine, on March 18, 2022. Photo: Ivor Prickett/The New York Times
This, for the purpose of creating social and economic burdens so intense that these NATO states will eventually put pressure on Zelensky to accept any term that Putin demands to stop the war.
Putin probably hopes that, although this plan will most likely involve commit war crimes that could make him and the Russian state permanent pariahs, the need for Russian oil, gas and wheat, and Russia’s help in addressing regional problems like the impending nuclear deal with Iran, would soon force the world to do business again with “Bad Boy Putin” (Putin the bad boy) as he always has in the past.
Putin’s Plan B. seems to be developing as planned.
The French news agency Agence France-Presse reported from kyiv on Sunday: “More than 3.3 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the war began, Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the UN. It is believed that another 6.5 million are displaced within the country”.
The briefing went on to say: “In an intelligence update on Saturday night, Britain’s Defense Ministry said that Ukraine was continuing to effectively defend its airspace, forcing Russia to rely on weapons launched from its own airspace. He said Russia had been forced to “change its operational approach and is now pursuing a strategy of attrition. This is likely to involve the indiscriminate use of firepower, resulting in increased civilian casualties, the destruction of the Ukrainian infrastructure and the intensification of the humanitarian crisis.
The plan of Biden and Zelensky
However, Putin’s Plan B is butting heads with Biden and Zelensky. Zelensky’s Plan A, which I suspect is working even better than he expected, is to fight the Russian army until draw on the ground, break his will and forcing Putin to agree to Zelensky’s terms for a peace deal, with the Kremlin leader barely saving face.
Despite all the barbaric bloodshed and shelling by Russian forces, Zelensky wisely continues to hold an eye on a diplomatic solutionalways pushing to negotiate with Putin as he marshals his forces and his people.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that “the war in Ukraine has reached a dead end after more than three weeks of fighting, with Russia making only marginal gains and increasingly targeting civilians, according to analysts and US officials. “Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research institute, said in an analysis. The Russians they do not have neither the manpower nor the equipment to seize kyiv, the capital, or other major cities such as Kharkov and Odessa, the study concluded.”
Biden’s Plan A, which he explicitly warned Putin about before the war began in an effort to dissuade him, was impose economic sanctions on Russia such as the West had never imposed before, with the aim of reducing the Russian economy to a standstill.
Biden’s strategy, which also involved sending weapons to the Ukrainians to put military pressure on Russia, is doing just that. He’s probably succeeding beyond Biden’s expectations because was amplified by hundreds of foreign companies operating in Russia that suspended their operations there, voluntarily or under pressure from their employees.
Russian factories now they have to close because they can’t get microchips and other raw materials they need from the West; Air travel to and around Russia is being restricted because many of its commercial aircraft were actually owned by Irish charter companies, and Airbus and Boeing will not service those Russia owns outright.
Meanwhile, thousands of young Russian tech workers are voting against the war with their feet and simply leaving the country, all in just a month since Putin started this ill-conceived war.
“More than half of the goods and services entering Russia come from 46 or more countries that have imposed sanctions or trade restrictions, with the United States and the European Union in the lead,” reported The Washington Post, citing the economic research firm Castellum.ai.
The Post article added: “In a televised speech on Thursday, a defiant Russian president, Vladimir Putin, appeared to acknowledge the country’s challenges. He said widespread sanctions would force “deep structural changes in our economy” but vowed Russia would overcome “attempts to stage an economic blitzkrieg.”
Putin added: “It is difficult for us at the moment. Russian financial companies, large companies, small and medium-sized companies are facing unprecedented pressure.”
So there you have the question of the hour: Will the pressure on NATO countries from all the refugees that Putin’s war machine is creating – more and more every day – outweigh the pressure being created on his stalled military? on the ground in Ukraine and in your domestic economy?
The answer to that question should determine when and how this war ends, either with a clear winner and a loser or, perhaps more likely, with some sort of dirty commitment tilted for or against Putin.
I say “perhaps” because Putin can feel that cannot tolerate any type of tie or dirty compromise. You may feel that anything short of total victory it’s a humiliation that would undermine his authoritarian grip on power.
Plan C
Then, could opt for a Plan C, which, I assume, would involve air or rocket attacks on Ukrainian military supply lines across the border with Poland.
Poland is a member of NATO, and any attack on its territory would require all other NATO members to come to the defense of Poland.
Putin may believe that if he can force that issue and some NATO members balk at defending Poland, he willNATO could fracture.
It would certainly trigger heated debates within all NATO countries, especially the United States, about getting directly involved. in a possible World War III with Russia. Whatever happens in Ukraine, if Putin could break up NATO, it would be an achievement that could mask all his other losses.
The Plan D
If Putin’s plans A, B and C fail, I am afraid it would be a cornered animal and could opt for Plan D: drop chemical weapons or the first nuclear bomb since Nagasaki.
This it is a difficult sentence to write and even worse to contemplate. But to ignore it as a possibility would be naive in the extreme.
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