‘Quo Vadis’ Russia-Ukraine War

Russia's military aggression against Ukraine has now entered its sixth day. Russia easily annexed Donetsk and Luhansk, in the eastern part of Ukraine, on the first day of the invasion.

The militaries of Russia and Ukraine, in terms of size, are indeed very unequal. Ukraine is practically beleaguered from all sides. Russia's victory and the fall of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are only a matter of time.

The question is, why did Russia fight Ukraine, which until 1991 was both part of the Soviet Union? I think there are three reasons. First is Ukraine's instability. Second is Russia's sensitivity regarding border issues. And third is the insensitivity of the West, both the European Union and the United States, toward Russia.

Russia is currently under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, a nationalist who seems to have vowed never again to see Russia being humiliated by the West, as it was at the end of the Cold War during the Soviet Union’s dissolution.

Internal conflict and Russian insecurity

Within Ukraine, the source of internal conflict is ethnic and religious composition. People in the Western Ukraine are Catholic and Ukrainian-speaking while those in the east are Russian Orthodox and Russian-speaking. This explains why the Donetsk and Luhansk separatists (in the eyes of the Zelenskyy government) easily defected to Russia on the first day of the war.

The east-west difference was exploited by politicians (Victor Yanukovich versus Yulia Tymoshenko) in the 2019 election, which was won by a third person, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a comedian of Jewish descent and the current President of Ukraine. His main policy of attempting to join NATO infuriated Russia.

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Another factor is the concept of "insecurity" in Russia. Despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and a crippled economy, from a military perspective Russia remains one of the world's superpowers. Its nuclear arsenal is about 6,000, comparable to America's. The development of the latest Russian long-range missile technology, namely hypersonic missiles (which travel at a speed of Mach 5) and missiles capable of destroying satellites in space, took the Pentagon by surprise.

However, Russia's opponents do not understand the basic concept of insecurity, which is a consequence of Russia's 16,000-kilometer long border (16 times the length of Java Island and crossing 11 time zones), which stretches from the North Pacific to the Baltic Sea. This insecurity has plagued Russia since the time of the Tsar empire (862-1917).

For Russia, borders are not just borders, but must be buffer zones as well. Zelenskyy's policy of seeking Ukraine’s membership in the EU may still be accepted by Russia, but Ukraine's becoming a member of NATO, based on historical analysis and contemporary political realities, would be a difficult to accept provocation. Russia considers the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO a threat to its security.

Regional geopolitics

In terms of regional geopolitics, after winning the Cold War, since 1990, the EU has expanded its membership in all directions to cover much of mainland Europe. It covers some former Eastern European bloc countries, as well as some former Soviet Union countries.

NATO is a military pact that is the mainstay of European defense. It has full US support and has no equivalent after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991. There was Western euphoria after winning the Cold War, forgetting that for Putin, then a middle-ranking officer in the KGB, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a grave insult because his dream was of imperial Russia under Tsarist glory.

The Russia-Ukraine war is the third war in the region in the last 13 years. First was the Georgia-Russia war in August 2008, following tensions between the two countries. As a result, two strategic Georgian territories on the shores of the Black Sea, namely South Ossetia and Abkhazia, were taken by Russia.

In January and February 2014 a Russia-Ukraine war was fought with the result that the Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia. In 1954, the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev (who was originally Ukrainian), presented Crimea to Ukraine. The third is the current Russia-Ukraine war.

The Russia-Ukraine war is the third war in the region in the last 13 years.

The three wars have some things in common. First, Russia exploited “rebellions” in the regions of Ossetia and Abkhasia, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk and supported them militarily. Second, the majority of the population of these areas are ethnic Russians. During the Soviet Union, ethnic Russians were distributed to all its states. In Crimea, the population of Russian origin is about 60 percent.

Third, as before in Abhkazia and Ossetia, Donetsk and Luhansk were two secessionist groups that a few days before the war declared themselves “democratic republics” that Russia immediately recognized. Fourth, Russia's concern was that countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, which directly border Russia, were out of its sphere of influence and could even become members of NATO.

Fifth, like in Russia's wars with Georgia and Ukraine before, Ukraine was also promised military assistance. Putin's long memory, after leading Russia in the two previous wars, knows that those promises have not been fulfilled. Zelenskyy's expectations are excessive, especially since Ukraine is not yet a member of the EU and NATO.

Sixth, the policies taken by the US and the EU, including imposing heavy economic sanctions on Russia, have so far been mediocre. Previously, Russia had been subject to sanctions by the United States since the annexation of Crimea, one of which had an impact on third parties, such as Indonesia, which had to cancel the purchase of the SU-35 fighter squadron.

Russia must have also read that the by-election in November in the US this year has a high chance of being won by the Republican Party. If this is true, then US President Joe Biden will no longer be free to carry out his foreign policy toward Russia. We still remember President Trump, who is still very influential in the Republican Party, praising Putin's move to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk as a step of genius that he had not thought of before.

Seventh, if the US wants to impose painful sanctions on Russia, it has to block Russia's oil and gas. Russia is one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world and oil and gas is a huge source of income for Russia.

The dilemma is that the EU relies heavily on Russia, which supplies 50 percent of the EU's gas needs, while the US, which is rich in shale gas, is also not in a position to meet Europe's needs. Therefore, when President Biden announced severe sanctions to be imposed on Russia, oil and gas sanctions were not included (off the table).

Political reality and an ineffective world order

Military aggression against a sovereign state for whatever reason is an illegal act and is prohibited by the United Nations Charter. In theory, the Security Council (UNSC), according to its mandate, must recover the world from “threats to international peace and security”. In reality, it is impossible for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution against Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, which Russia will surely veto, even though the draft resolution has been weakened, no longer condemning but only deploring Russia's actions. The same thing happened when the US invaded Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003.

That the majority of UN member states condemn or strongly condemn Russia's aggression is a matter of principle and needs to be voiced. Because what else can be done when the world order in the field of peace and security is no longer effective. The reality is like in many previous wars involving veto-wielding countries in the UN Security Council; the show will go on.

Ukraine is under siege from the north, east and south, except for the west. The fighting, though still sporadic, has already entered the capital city of Kyiv. Ukraine is not a match for Russia. Ukraine's defeat is only a matter of time. Then, what's next?

There are several possibilities. First, the Zelenskyy government may be replaced by a puppet government that is subservient to Russia. Second may be annexing the “democratic republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, which cover more than a third of Ukraine's territory. It is still possible to combine the two options. The third is divide Ukraine into two, east and west Ukraine, along ethnic and religious lines.

Fourth is annexing all of Ukraine, which seems impossible. Ukraine is too big and too expensive for Russia to swallow. The ideal, according to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, would be for the Ukrainian people to choose their own government and make Ukraine a neutral country. With the EU and NATO on the one hand and Russia on the other, they must not make Ukraine the object of their tug of war.

In the near term and in the future—which cannot be easily predicted—Ukraine will surely fall under Russia's grasp, an embrace that can be stifling, “a suffocating embrace”.

ARSIP PRIBADI

Hassan Wirajuda

Hassan Wirajuda, Foreign affairs minister from 2001 to 2009 and member of the Presidential Advisory Council from 2010 to 2014

This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswo.