20 - "We Should Not Lose Vigilance"
Those were President Volodymyr Zelensky’s words yesterday. Given Putin’s cynical, sinister attempt to strengthen Russia’s position along the Sea of Azov and to forge a presumptive land corridor to Crimea, talk of compromise by Russian commanders, the Russian defense minister, and the so-called negotiators in Istanbul should be received with a huge lump of wary caution.
Russian missiles are still hitting the Lviv area in Ukraine’s far west. Russian tanks and artillery are still shelling suburbs of Kyiv, although Ukrainian partisans appear to be repulsing the Russians in Irpin and regaining limited lost territory in that area. Most of all, Russian continues to pulverize Mariupol, where its brave mayor says that hardly any buildings are left standing and most of its citizens have fled or are attempting to flee because of acute absences of potable water, power, or food. Russia is successfully starving that part of Ukraine, a tactic Putin employed in invasions earlier.
Notably, and as a striking indication of Russia’s probable employment of its supposed “redirection” of the war into the east and away from Kyiv as a tactic to buy time and confuse the Ukrainian defenders, Russia is promising Syrian soldiers large sums to join the invasion, paying their transport costs, and offering $50,000 bonuses to their families if they become combat fatalities. According to the BBC, 200 Syrians have already signed up and are on their way to the front.
We also know (as indicated here in an earlier post) that Russia has recalled about 1,000 mercenaries from Africa (from the Central African Republic and Mali) to join the Russian forces besieging Kharkiv and attempting to surround Kyiv. These men, from the so-called Wagner Group, are experienced warriors, known for their propensities to kill the innocent (as in Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mozambique) and butcher indiscriminately.
Putin has also enlisted Chechens to join the battle for Ukraine. Many are battle- hardened veterans experienced in pummeling fellow Chechens on behalf of their dangerous Chechen ruler as well as Putin. Opposing these Chechens are others from Chechnya who are anti-Russian and have enlisted to defend Kyiv along with the many other foreigners who have crossed from Europe and the U. S. to help Ukraine defend itself from aggression.
Clearly, Putin would not have recalled the Wagnerites and offered bounties to Syrians if his Russian war machine was winning. Yet, President Zelensky’s call for vigilance is an important reminder that bringing in the Russian mercenaries also means that Putin probably has no intention of downsizing his war aims, despite such hopeful talk.
The hopeful talk does, however, conceivably represent the first stirring of modest Russian military re-calibration. Russia’s generals may have begun to assert themselves to reconfigure Putin’s goals. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, back in the picture after an unexplained absence, may tentatively be expressing such views. Furthermore, the appearance of Roman Abramovitch, a multibillionaire oligarch, in the midst of the Istanbul talks (and earlier in Belarus) indicates that the negotiators may be using him as a messenger to sway Putin. Abramovitch’s wealth has long been suspected to be Putin’s, and his own actions in Londongrad and elsewhere (such as Siberia) to be those of Putin by proxy.
Putin, suggests a New York Times columnist, may even be pursuing a Plan B that would give him permanent control of the massive gas and petroleum reserves that lie underneath eastern Ukraine and offshore of the Crimea. If Putin added those energy resources to Russia’s existing reservoirs of crude oil and natural gas, his power over the globe’s future would be that much greater. He would be a force with which to be reckoned for years ahead. Could it be, Bret Stephens asked yesterday, that Putin’s probe all along has been to make a weakened Ukraine give up its main mostly unexploited resource? Backing away from Kyiv, Stephens suggests, might always have been in Putin’s tactical mind. Indeed, Stephens quotes a Canadian energy guru “Under the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing an enormous energy heist.”
Plausible? Certainly such ideas are worth careful consideration whether that was Putin’s idea all along or whether that is what he wants to salvage from his miserable and misguided war. In any event, NATO, Europe, the U. S. and the world must – as President Zelensky cautions – remain vigilant.
The war has not yet turned, the talks in Istanbul and wherever next could be a stall for time, or an attempt by generals, bolstered by Abramovitch, to influence Putin for the better when his real aims are to uplift his ability to dominate, connive, and enrich himself (as added energy resources would do).
Ukraine is still imperiled, an neither Putin nor Russia are yet to be trusted.