AK, what do you think the endgame for Novorossiya will be? It's the greatest prize there is. As a putinologist I'm concerned by the lack of aggression, because Putin loves leaving things half-done. Was Girkin-Prosvirnin shobla right all along?
I never put much stock in the Putinsliv theories and I still don't to be quite honest.
It is clear that Putin has chosen the frozen conflict route.
There are good arguments to be made for this approach. Supporting the LDNR might be expensive, both economically and diplomatically, but it's still a lot less expensive than outright intevention (which appears to have seriously been on the cards up until April 2014). We have to assume that Putin and his team carried out an informed Weighted Average Decision Matrix (or something like that) analysis of the situation and the policies we're seeing now came out ahead, though perhaps by a thin margin.
The military power of the NAF continues increasing. It now has 40,000 well-equipped troops and (reportedly) 450 MBTs. A year ago, it had no more than 20,000 troops, with just a few dozen MBTs. More importantly, it is a *real* army now, with centralized C&C, whereas a year ago it consisted primarily of independent militias. These can be adequate in defense, but you cannot carry out coherent, large-scale offensive operations with that kind of structure. Prosvirnin and Co. say the purging of the most recalcitrant militia leaders is "proof" that a zrada is nigh. But it could just as plausibly be interpreted as rational, consucitive steps to increase the NAF's military power. I do not think these changes could have been possible without Russia's support. Ultimately, why would Russia bother with upgrading the NAF if it planned to give it all back to the junta anyway?
In the meantime, with any luck, the Ukrainian economy will continue to degrade, and Poroshenko finds himself trapped between a rock (the Minsk Accords) and a hard place (the Maidan absolutists and the hardliners of the Far Right), and we will see a collapse into complete chaos, which may finally convince the Western powers to give up on Ukraine and create many other opportunities. But it's also quite possible that the system will manage to pull through. That is the risk Putin took when he decided against military intervention last April.
It is clear that Putin has chosen the frozen conflict route.
There are good arguments to be made for this approach. Supporting the LDNR might be expensive, both economically and diplomatically, but it's still a lot less expensive than outright intevention (which appears to have seriously been on the cards up until April 2014). We have to assume that Putin and his team carried out an informed Weighted Average Decision Matrix (or something like that) analysis of the situation and the policies we're seeing now came out ahead, though perhaps by a thin margin.
The military power of the NAF continues increasing. It now has 40,000 well-equipped troops and (reportedly) 450 MBTs. A year ago, it had no more than 20,000 troops, with just a few dozen MBTs. More importantly, it is a *real* army now, with centralized C&C, whereas a year ago it consisted primarily of independent militias. These can be adequate in defense, but you cannot carry out coherent, large-scale offensive operations with that kind of structure. Prosvirnin and Co. say the purging of the most recalcitrant militia leaders is "proof" that a zrada is nigh. But it could just as plausibly be interpreted as rational, consucitive steps to increase the NAF's military power. I do not think these changes could have been possible without Russia's support. Ultimately, why would Russia bother with upgrading the NAF if it planned to give it all back to the junta anyway?
In the meantime, with any luck, the Ukrainian economy will continue to degrade, and Poroshenko finds himself trapped between a rock (the Minsk Accords) and a hard place (the Maidan absolutists and the hardliners of the Far Right), and we will see a collapse into complete chaos, which may finally convince the Western powers to give up on Ukraine and create many other opportunities. But it's also quite possible that the system will manage to pull through. That is the risk Putin took when he decided against military intervention last April.
