Russia Displays a New Military Prowess in Ukraine’s East
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry has accused Russia of behaving in a “19th-century fashion” because of its annexation of Crimea.
But Western experts who have followed the success of Russian forces in carrying out President Vladimir V. Putin’s policy in Crimea and eastern Ukraine
have come to a different conclusion about Russian military strategy.
They see a military disparaged for its decline since the fall of the
Soviet Union skillfully employing 21st-century tactics that combine cyberwarfare,
an energetic information campaign and the use of highly trained special
operation troops to seize the initiative from the West.
“It
is a significant shift in how Russian ground forces approach a
problem,” said James G. Stavridis, the retired admiral and former NATO
commander. “They have played their hand of cards with finesse.”
The
abilities the Russian military has displayed are not only important to
the high-stakes drama in Ukraine, they also have implications for the
security of Moldova, Georgia, Central Asian nations and even the Central
Europe nations that are members of NATO.
The
dexterity with which the Russians have operated in Ukraine is a far cry
from the bludgeoning artillery, airstrikes and surface-to-surface
missiles used to retake Grozny, the Chechen capital, from Chechen
separatists in 2000. In that conflict, the notion of avoiding collateral
damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure appeared to be alien.
Since
then Russia has sought to develop more effective ways of projecting
power in the “near abroad,” the non-Russian nations that emerged from
the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has tried to upgrade its military,
giving priority to its special forces, airborne and naval infantry —
“rapid reaction” abilities that were “road tested” in Crimea, according
to Roger McDermott, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation.
The
speedy success that Russia had in Crimea does not mean that the overall
quality of the Russian Army, made up mainly of conscripts and no match
for the high-tech American military, has been transformed.
“The
operation reveals very little about the current condition of the
Russian armed forces,” said Mr. McDermott. “Its real strength lay in
covert action combined with sound intelligence concerning the weakness
of the Kiev government and their will to respond militarily.”
Still,
Russia’s operations in Ukraine have been a swift meshing of hard and
soft power. The Obama administration, which once held out hope that Mr.
Putin would seek an “off ramp” from the pursuit of Crimea, has
repeatedly been forced to play catch-up after the Kremlin changed what
was happening on the ground.
“It
is much more sophisticated, and it reflects the evolution of the
Russian military and of Russian training and thinking about operations
and strategy over the years,” said Stephen J. Blank, a former expert on
the Russian military at the United States Army War College who is a
senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.
For
its intervention in Crimea, the Russians used a so-called snap military
exercise to distract attention and hide their preparations. Then
specially trained troops, without identifying patches, moved quickly to
secure key installations. Once the operation was underway, the Russian
force cut telephone cables, jammed communications and used cyberwarfare
to cut off the Ukrainian military forces on the peninsula.
“They
disconnected the Ukrainian forces in Crimea from their command and
control,” the NATO commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, said in a recent interview.
As
it cemented control, the Kremlin has employed an unrelenting media
campaign to reinforce its narrative that a Russian-abetted intervention
had been needed to rescue the Russian-speaking population from
right-wing extremists and chaos.
No
sooner had the Obama administration demanded that Russia pull back from
Crimea than the Kremlin raised the stakes by massing about 40,000
troops near Ukraine’s eastern frontier.
Soon,
the Russians were sending small, well-equipped teams across the
Ukrainian border to seize government buildings that could be turned over
to sympathizers and local militias, American officials said. Police
stations and Interior Ministry buildings, which stored arms that could
be turned over to local supporters, were targeted.
“Because
they have some local support they can keep leveraging a very small
cadre of very good fighters and move forward,” said Daniel Goure, an
expert on the Russian military at the Lexington Institute, a policy
research group.
While
the Kremlin retains the option of mounting a large-scale intervention
in eastern Ukraine, the immediate purposes of the air and ground forces
massed near Ukraine appears to be to deter the Ukrainian military from
cracking down in the east and to dissuade the United States from
providing substantial military support.
The
Kremlin has used its military deployment to buttress its diplomatic
strategy of insisting on an extensive degree of federalism in Ukraine,
one in which the eastern provinces would be largely autonomous and under
Moscow’s influence.
And
as Russians have flexed their muscles, the White House appears to have
refocused its demands. Crimea barely figured in the talks in Geneva that
involved Mr. Kerry and his counterparts from Russia, Ukraine and the
European Union.
The
Obama administration’s urgent goal is to persuade the Kremlin to
relinquish control over the government buildings in eastern Ukraine that
the American officials insist have been held by small teams of Russian
troops or pro-Russian separatists under Moscow’s influence. Despite the
focus on the combustible situation in eastern Ukraine, the joint
statement the diplomats issued in Geneva did not even mention the
presence of Russia’s 40,000 troops near the border, which President Obama has urged be withdrawn.
Military
experts say that the sort of strategy the Kremlin has employed in
Ukraine is likely to work best in areas in which there are pockets of
ethnic Russians to provide local support. The strategy is also easier to
carry out if it is done close to Russian territory, where a large and
intimidating force can be assembled and the Russian military can easily
supply special forces.
“It
can be used in the whole former Soviet space,” said Chris Donnelly, a
former top adviser at NATO, who added that Georgia, Moldova, Armenia,
Azerbaijan and the Central Asia states were “very vulnerable.”
“The
Baltic States are much less vulnerable, but there will still be
pressure on them and there will on Poland and Central Europe,” Mr.
Donnelly added.
Admiral
Stavridis agreed that Russia’s strategy would be most effective when
employed against a nation with a large number of sympathizers. But he
said that Russia’s deft use of cyberwarfare, special forces and
conventional troops was a development that NATO needed to study and
factor into its planning.
“In
all of those areas they have raised their game, and they have
integrated them quite capably,” he said. “And I think that has utility
no matter where you are operating in the world.”
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