Ukraine Think About It, But Don't Do It

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War always ends up looking the same

A few thoughts about Ukraine. The status quo is not stable, and it is clearly not sustainable. Therefore, the Minsk II ceasefire agreement is almost certain to collapse. The largest question is if it will hold at all, and if so, for how long. The rebels don't have what they want, the Ukrainians don't have what they want, and while the Russians most likely wouldn't mind seeing things settle down, they also know they have very little else to lose if things stay hot.

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The immediate source of extreme tension in the runup to the ceasefire - scheduled for midnight Sunday Local - about a half an hour from now as I write this - is a couple of good-sized Ukrainian towns. The first major issue is the primary rail hub of Debaltseve, northeast of Donetsk proper. In what has come to be known as the Debaltseve pocket, 8000 Ukrainian soldiers are trapped, entirely encircled by separatist rebels supported by Russian armor and artillery, and covered by Russian air defense batteries. The rebel leaders have been defiant - the ceasefire agreement, they say, does not include Debaltseve, and the Ukrainian soldiers trapped there must either surrender or die. The fighting is fierce, with small unit action on the perimeter and ferocious artillery duels vying for control of the roads in and out.  It's hard to imagine the general ceasefire holding while the Debaltseve pocket is locked in a battle for its very life.

The second is the seaport city of Mariupol, a city of half a million on the north coast of the Sea of Azov. The ethnic Russian separatists trying to carve the Donetsk People's Republic out of Eastern Ukraine desperately need access to a blue water port, and Mariupol would give them that. At this point, the Ukrainian military, fighting alongside a number of different militias of various ideologies have been able to hold a perimeter north of the city, but the fighting and shelling has been occasionally intense, and it is very hard to believe that the rebels would accept a long-term agreement that did not include Mariupol as part of their territory.

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No, it's not the Soviet Union Redux. It's a regional issue and the border is the problem. Americans like to believe that the fighting in Ukraine is evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to rebuild something on the order of the Soviet Union, expanding back into Eastern Europe. The reality is more prosaic, if no less troubling. Russia is merely doing what all powerful nations do. The same thing the US has done for centuries, the UK before that - exercising their regional dominance. Powerful nations insist on controlling their 'near abroad', and most of all those nations with whom they share a border. So while Russian aggression is just as bad as any other aggression, the fact that they share a border with Ukraine makes it far easier to understand, and to know what it is is to see what it is not. The interesting thing is the lack of any military pushback from the US or the EU, or even NATO, has made Putin aware of a critical dynamic that we can expect to see exploited in the future. The Russians are willing to use military force, albeit of a transparently dishonest 'deniable' sort, and the Europeans are not willing to risk escalation to a major war over those small eastern nations.

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Which brings us to what the West might do as the conflict drags on, and the Ukrainians find it harder to stand against an internal enemy supported by a much larger, more powerful nation. There's more sanctions, but with the European nations struggling with a stagnant, crippled, deflationary economy and facing a series of political crises centered on the Euro and the role of the EU in member states' economies, Brussels is likely to be extremely reticent to pile on more sanctions. In addition, sanctions bite until they don't - the only reason the current sanctions on Russia had any bite at all is the unexpected collapse of crude oil prices. It's hard to see what effect further sanctions might have, and if Europe pushes hard enough Russia can turn off their natural gas supply - an extreme response with huge consequences, but if you push hard enough you can get there.

There is talk of arming the Ukrainians, but I don't see how a lack of armaments is the reason Ukraine is losing this fight. This is not a modern war, this is a war being fought on the ground with infantry, tanks and artillery. It's World War II without airplanes. And no matter what kind of gear NATO might ship into Ukraine from depots all over the world, it's a simple matter for Russia to push more and better gear a few kilometers across the border. It's a logistics battle the west is guaranteed to lose. And, of course, there is no real military option. Putin has made it clear he has a greater stomach for a new European war than any EU leader. Meanwhile, the west has indicated that he has a free hand to operate militarily in his 'near abroad'. There will be no escalation, and no risk of a nuclear exchange, over the likes of Ukraine. Estonia, Latvia, even Poland are taking note.


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The next few days are going to be critical. If the cease fire doesn't hold, Poroshenko will declare Martial Law and things could get much more violent. And if there's a massacre in Debaltseve then all bets are off. If the ceasefire holds, even for a brief time, expect to see the rebel's demands grow more and more audacious and arbitrary, almost to the point where the Kiev government will be forced to reject them. Either way, this thing is far from over, and there's a lot of blood still to be spilled on Ukraine's ancient soil.

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