NBC News has debunked reports that Russia was building up troops in order to invade Ukraine. That doesn't mean that it won't happen at some point in the future. But it does mean that fears of a possible Russian invasion of East Ukraine or Moldavia have been blown out of proportion. NBC News went into the territory and found no evidence of an impending invasion. They interviewed local villagers on both sides of the border; most of them said there was no such evidence. In many places, the border is completely open so that you can cross it at will; if Russia had wanted to invade Eastern Ukraine, they would have done so by now.
The recent troop buildups reported on in the news, placed as high as 50,000 by the Wall Street Journal, were filmed on Interpreter. However, it turns out from NBC's reporting that Russia was telling the truth when they said that they were conducting military exercises. There was a purpose behind the exercises -- they were there as a show of force in an effort to influence events in Kiev. Since reports of these buildups hit the news, Kiev special forces shot and killed one of the nationalist ringleaders who had been committing political violence to further his aims. And the threat of a Russian attack persuaded his supporters to back down from surrounding the Parliament building and the Right Sector issued a statement saying they would pursue their aims only through lawful means. And elements emerged, as RT lamely admitted, that want to outlaw the far right or at least curb their activities.
From NBC, Russia was telling the truth:
Top Russian officials – including Putin himself – have denied any such troop concentrations near the Western border. One minor Ministry of Defense official, who didn’t want to be named because he wasn’t authorized to comment, told NBC News that there had been training exercises – war games – in the border region but, once ended, those troops and armor returned to their bases. “All of this international hype is completely unfounded,” he told us on Sunday.
The NBC reporters went for hundreds of miles along the Ukraine-Russia border without seeing any signs of military activity from either side. They even went to a Russian military base just a few miles from the border. No artillery or tanks anywhere.
We traveled some 500 miles along the border – sometimes right next to Ukraine, at other times 30 to 40 miles from it – before we came across any sign of military activity. As we passed Belgorod’s army base, near the airport, I recognized the same MI-24 choppers I’d seen on the Internet. We got lucky – a pair took off as we drove past. We turned back to see them banking within the base’s perimeter. Nearby, clusters of military vehicles, mostly heavy trucks, were out in the open, but where were the tanks and artillery?
And the Russians themselves stated openly that they did not want war and that they did not think Putin would give the order for war.
Russian villagers living just 5 miles from the border in Novoshakhtinsky -- one of the most likely invasion routes into Donetsk -- didn’t believe Putin would give the order.
“If Russians and Ukrainians on the other side unite, it would be better for everyone,” offered Vladimir Kasianov, an unemployed 30-something who echoed the sentiments of many Russians we talked to along the border. But Kasianov didn’t want a military solution. “Everything must be done through politics, not war,” he told us.
We don't buy the argument advanced by some that Putin has decided on engaging in some sort of a "phony war" similar to what Hitler did after overrunning Poland. Russia and Ukraine are still talking and still have diplomatic relations;
Russia's embassy in Kiev is still open.
Ukraine's embassy in Moscow is still open as well.
And there are a lot of considerations that militate against a Russian invasion. The North Caucasus, after a period of calm, is flaring up again.
Overall casualties, at least those being reported, have fallen among siloviki, militants and the civilian population, but last year, after two years of declines, the number of civilian losses “again rose.” Each side in this conflict can be counted on to put its own interpretation on what is happening.
But one development in the conflict in the region is sufficiently disturbing that it deserves broader attention and condemnation even if there are disagreements on statistics. It is being reported in local websites and media that the siloviki are now setting fires in highland Daghestan in an effort to deny the militants cover and force them into open fields where they can be fought.
At least five such fires have been set so far, and, despite the statements of some officials that these are the result of bad fire security, local residents and experts are nearly unanimous that there is no other plausible explanation for the timing, size and location of the fires except siloviki involvement.
The Russians, as the article notes, have launched numerous special operations recently. Despite these developments, the militants are attracting foreign fighters from abroad along with local residents.
And Russian commentators are advocating a period of consolidation and industrialization.
And they suggest that for that to happen, according to a survey of opinion of Svetlana Gomzikova of the Svobodnaya pressa portal, what will be required are not just money and military victories but the kind of changes in Russia that the Putin regime has been unwilling to make.
“In the final analysis,” she says, “euphoria over the unification of Crimea” with the Russian Federation “will pass, but the problems” that Russia faces “will remain in place” because the “status” of a world power won’t “feed” anyone, pay the bills or even allow the country to remain that great for very long.
Vladimir Shevchenko, a senior scholar at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, tells Gomzikova that “Russia can exist only as a great power. Or it will not exist at all. This is an axiom which has been confirmed over the course of the centuries of all our history. But in reality, [such a] status doesn’t feed anyone. And it must be confirmed by actions.”
So, given the fact that mainstream Russian commentators are advocating caution and consolidation, this likely reflects Putin's thinking given the fact that he has severely tightened press controls over the last few years. Another consideration is that the euphoria over Putin's seizure of Crimea may have reached its peak.
Many people are angry that Putin has not shown the same concern for their rights that he has for Crimea.
In at least some predominantly Russian areas, people are complaining about Crimea as they did about the Sochi Olympics, arguing that Moscow is spending so much money on one of its projects that it does not have funds to pay for new housing and other civic services in their home areas.
According to Maksim Kalashnikov on Forum-MSK.org yesterday, Novosibirsk residents have been demanding that the city replace 105 barracks-type housing blocks but officials have said that there is no money to do so. At a public hearing, one woman said that Moscow has “billions” for Sochi or Crimea but apparently no money for her and her fellow residents.
These are “terrible words,” Kalashnikov says, and he suggests that “today they are being pronounced throughout the entire country.” Such words do not mean that Russians oppose helping their co-ethnics in Crimea and elsewhere, but they show that Russians are increasingly angry that the center is spending money on its projects and not on theirs.
Another consideration is that the more that Russia embarks on military adventurism,
the more likely that Chechnya will create problems.
The mission, which mainly involved guarding buildings, was an illustration of how far the Chechnya region in Russia's North Caucasus is ready to go to show allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin, 14 years after he crushed its separatist drive. But many Chechens feel no love for Russia and have a sardonic message for their new Crimean compatriots: welcome to Russia, we hope you like it.
"The referendum itself was one thing. It was calm, orderly. But what happens now with Crimea, that is up to Vladimir Putin," Adam, 36, said in a cafe in Chechnya's main city of Grozny, speaking on condition that his last name was not used.
So what will Putin's next move be?
The problem is that Putin himself doesn't know.
In a rather cavalier way, Moscow has thrown out the window more than 20 years of its foreign policy but failed to articulate in a coherent way what it now aims to accomplish.
Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has emphasized respect for state sovereignty, noninterference in internal affairs, inviolability of borders, impermissibility of unilateral use of force, constraints on separatism and humanitarian intervention. Russia saw value in playing by the rules.
Now Russia claims the right to use force and change established borders in defense of ethnic Russians. It dismisses treaty commitments, including nuclear security guarantees and other international obligations that constrain unilateral action. It tries to tell other nations how to organize their government and what allies to have. It bolts out of global institutions it has worked hard to join. But to gain what?