PARIS — The failure of the
US and
Russia this
week to find a diplomatic solution to fizzing tensions over Eastern European
security has increased the chance of a new Russian attack on Ukraine even if
full-scale war is far from inevitable, analysts say.
اضافة اعلان
Russia stands accused of having massed some 100,000 troops
close to the Ukrainian border, as it seeks a commitment from the West that the
pro-EU former Soviet state will never join
NATO.
Senior Russian and US officials this week held talks in
Geneva but there was no hint of any breakthrough, with Washington warning by
the end of the week Moscow could stage a false flag operation within weeks to
precipitate an invasion.
"We have information that indicates Russia has already
prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct a false-flag operation in
eastern Ukraine," said
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.
"The operatives are trained in urban warfare and in
using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia's own proxy
forces."
Ukraine was meanwhile hit by a blistering cyberattack in the
early hours of Friday blamed by the West on Russia and which some analysts
feared could be the prelude to an attack.
Moscow responded to the ousting of
Ukraine's former
pro-Russia president in 2014 by seizing in a lightning military operation the
Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, an annexation never recognised by the
international community.
It then backed separatists who took control of two eastern
Ukrainian regions in an unsolved conflict that has left over 13,000 dead.
Is there a way out?
NATO has made clear that it will never rule out the
possibility that Ukraine could join the alliance, even if analysts see this as
a very remote chance for now.
"Regrettably war is more likely. We've reached a real
impasse," said Melinda Haring, deputy director of the US-based
Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. "As things stand, the Russian and US positions
are irreconcilable."
Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center,
added: "The absence of a diplomatic solution logically leads to a further
exacerbation of this crisis with a military solution already seen as a way
out."
Samuel Charap, senior political scientist at the RAND
Corporation, noted that NATO had not even offered Ukraine a membership action
plan let alone membership.
"Finding a way to say that, that is politically viable,
is going to be very difficult, of course, but so will a war," he said.
What is Russia planning?
But analysts say despite the ominous signals it is
impossible to read the mind of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For Marie Dumoulin, director of the Wider Europe program at
the
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), "the decision on whether
or not to continue these talks will be taken by Vladimir Putin and no-one knows
right now what it will be".
Francois Heisbourg, special advisor to the Foundation for
Strategic Research (FRS) in Paris, said "the situation is totally
volatile" and the "risk of war high".
Charap said it was "an open question" whether the
talks with the US had simply been a "time buying exercise" for
Russia.
"And I don't know whether that's the case and I don't
think any of us really know."
What shape would military action take?
Even if Russia opted for military action, it may not come
down to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Putin could look to responses such as deploying Russian
missiles in the separatist-controlled Donbass region of eastern Ukraine or
Crimea, according to the prominent Russian security analyst Maxim Suchkov.
Heisbourg argued another option could be limited "territorial
gains" that would link the Donbass region with Crimea.
US intelligence sources have indicated that no final
decision has been taken by Russia. A French diplomatic source, who asked not to
be named added: "I do not believe there are preparations for an immediate
invasion."
What would the consequences be?
Russia has repeatedly been warned by Western powers of
"massive" consequences were it to attack Ukraine again, although
these would likely take the form of sanctions rather than any military riposte.
Moscow and the West would suffer a crisis unprecedented
since the Cold War, likely tightening further the growing Russian partnership
with China as well as its alliance with the autocratic regime of Belarus which
borders three EU states.
For Dumoulin, "the Russians are blowing hot and
cold" and keeping "maximum pressure to obtain more" concessions
from the West over the architecture of European security in former Communist
bloc states.
"The scenario of military intervention is not the most
probable" because its "cost, military, political, financial and
human" would be considerable, she said.
Haring argued Putin would strike Ukraine "in a way
short of war", prompting Europe "to wring its hands but stop short of
unleashing its harsh package of sanctions."
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