I thought you'd be interested in what Ukrainian journalists, rather than those of the American sort, are saying about the current tensions — to understate matters — in their own backyard. To that purpose, here are parts of a lead opinion piece for the Ukrainian English-language newspaper Kyiv Post, a pro-West, pro-democracy outlet. The writer is Irena Yarosevych, an editor and journalist who also served as the foreign media liaison for Rukh, Ukraine's first opposition party under the Soviets.
Now that Putin has the attention of the West with his massive troop build up, before he actually begins military action, during the next few weeks he will attempt to extort (under the guise of negotiations) the West to meet some of his demands and see how much of Ukraine he can get without using bullets....
Putin has been building up for this fight, some say, to better judge the reaction and capabilities of the West. Reactions aside, in the end, you do not spend this kind of money and commit this amount of resources just to get attention. If he is going to back down, then he has to get something uber valuable in return. To date, in his opinion, there is nothing of value forthcoming either from the West, or from Ukraine. Quite the opposite. The West threatens economic stranglehold. Ukraine threatens not only hardware and fiercely committed, battle-trained soldiers, but volunteer insurgents to add to the resistance.
If Putin escalates the war, the West has promised to punish: sanctions, closure of bank accounts, denial of visas to Russians, force Russia out of SWIFT [an international system for money transfers], block needed imports, and send military aid to Ukraine.
However, Putin has been stashing billions into his war chest for years precisely to withstand such punishment.
As he sees it, he is not yet getting anything valuable in order to stay quiet; however, he is also hearing that there is no actual commitment of manpower from NATO. This is important to Putin. He is ... exploring what he can extort for a promise to not attack at all.
He is also trying to assess how much actual damage in terms of lives lost, loss of oligarch support, loss of popular support, loss of historical prestige he will suffer if his escalation plan does not go well – a multi faceted blitz shock and awe attack on Ukraine – land, water, air, cyber – is the most often predicted scenario. [Here, the author is in disagreement with most military opinion.]
To be clear, Putin does not want all of Ukraine, only the very valuable, mineral-rich, agriculturally bountiful eastern regions and warm water southern coastline. Just the good stuff. You can keep those scrappy little mountains in western Ukraine that always suffer from spring mudslides.
Yarosevych initially stresses that no potential military conflict exists between Russia and Ukraine. "Russia has ALREADY invaded Ukraine – in 2014 – and occupied 10% of Ukraine’s territory. Ukraine and Russia are ALREADY at war," she writes, which I found to be a useful reminder, since we in the West, especially, too often think merely of war's immanence. Also of interest is her concluding observation that Putin desires only a partial occupation of Ukraine — my first encounter with such an opinion.
She further enjoys spoofing Putin here and there: Putin as "the glory hound," keeping the Kremlin — as well as the world, we should note — "all atwitter" as he "glows from all the attention."
There's an additional passage in Yarosevych's post that deserves special attention. It's both biting and a bit humorous: "Putin soon will be a leader of a country that is fast becoming irrelevant to most nations of the world," she notes, "with the exception of Germany."
Ouch.
I can't know if Yarosevych had just read, as I had, the NY Times' latest story on Germany's recent, shall we say, diplomatic peculiarities. But her caustic remark mirrored the Times' reporting: "In recent days Germany ... has stood out more for what it will not do [for Ukraine] than for what it is doing.... Germany’s evident hesitation to take forceful measures has fueled doubts about its reliability as an ally" — a prospective Europe-shaking, NATO-shattering, Western-alliance nightmare.
The nation's ruling Social Democratic Party (Chancellor Scholz's), Angela Merkel's formerly ruling Christian Democratic Union Party, even Germany's Green Party have coalesced into a kind of soft neutrality pact with Russia, and not only because of economic reasons. Ukrainian journalist Yarosevych has taken less than kindly to Germany's position, as, I imagine, most Ukrainians have.
And that's at least one win for Putin.