When Moscow moved its military towards Ukrainian borders and intensified the militarization of Kremlin-occupied Crimea, the threat of a deeper Russian invasion seemed possible.
Russia traditionally plays the game of “flexing muscles,” giving signals to Kyiv and Western capitals that it is not going to change its policy. Several months earlier, the Kremlin already showed European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borell in Moscow that Russia could also accept a new “reset” with unilateral consequences of Western counterparts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that Western opinion would not influence either the destiny of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned, imprisoned, and recently hospitalized in critical condition. Russian also plans to hold new fake parliamentary elections in 2021 with pro-Kremlin parties, of course, set to win. Yes, it seems that these elections are already predictable at first sight, but some shifts are made in the Kremlin approach to them.
The Navalny investigations and protests sparked by them led to a decrease in trust for Putin’s party United Russia.
Furthermore, “the smart voting” initiative — in which voters are asked to vote for anyone but ruling party candidates — can harm Putin’s performance.
Previous escalations near the Ukrainian borders have coincided with the election campaigns in Russia, and Putin uses the foreign policy “victories” to cover the visible failures of his domestic policy. The same campaigning method can be used for the Russian electorate by Putin, and it works as the propaganda machine shows him as a hero who frightened the “rotten West.” However, the election outcome is still pretty clear: no matter how unpopular United Russia may become, Russians vote to continue Putin`s regime as all parties in Russian Duma support Kremlin.
Within the recent escalation, which Putin only called off on April 22, Moscow wanted to send a message to Washington and Kyiv. When it comes to Washington, Putin sought to get recognition of Biden administration that the White House perceives the Kremlin as an equal partner. After Biden’s call, Putin stressed that Washington and Moscow carry responsibility for world architecture. For Putin, it looked like a reaffirmation of Russian global power status by the U.S. president.
However, in the Ukrainian case, Moscow responded to Kyiv signals, not vice versa.
Kremlin changed its position on Ukraine towards a hard one after understanding that President Volodymyr Zelensky is not going to satisfy all Russian wishes. After Zelensky’s election victory in 2019, Russian media portrayed him as a savior, while during the last two weeks Kremlin propaganda machine made a “devilish neo-Nazi war proponent.”
Even in that case, if we want to predict further Putin’s actions in the conflict, we have a hint from the Donbas itself – recently, the Kremlin-backed leader in Donetsk Oblast prepared three versions of his letter to Putin about the future of Donbas. These versions include possible scenarios for further Russian involvement in the conflict.
If we take that into account, it is possible that Russia can send its “peacekeeping forces,” formally annex parts of Donetsk Oblast into the Russian Federation, or even recognize this area as an independent state. These options give us a deeper insight into how the situation can spiral in the future, but there are no guarantees that the Kremlin does not have some surprises in its sleeves. That is why the Ukrainian government has to be prepared for anything that can happen in that case.
According to Moscow, a rapprochement in Ukraine-Russia relations during 2019, including a prisoner exchange or the Paris Normandy summit, had to lead to steps to be taken by Ukraine to solve the conflict in favor of Russia. However, over time it became clear for both parties that a global compromise is impossible. After comprehending that Ukraine has red lines it will not cross, such as ceding territory or control of its foreign policy as a sovereign state, Russians began to sabotage even minor negotiations on humanitarian issues.
The standstill in negotiations coincided with a so-called Zelensky right shift. In 2021, Zelensky started to use National Security and Defense Council, which previously played a relatively unimportant role under his term, as the main body for his decision-making. Instead of being the body that rapidly guides the state troubleshooting process, it seems that it turned into the toy for the President’s Office’s wishes and the tool to raise Zelensky’s public support.
For example, NSDC imposed sanctions on TV channels and property of pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Putin, the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter. The council also imposed sanctions on smugglers and even launched the work on legislation to curb the power of oligarchs.
Such different actions and initiatives approved by that body gave it the power to make the short-term wishes of the Ukrainian people real, without regard to the legal and political structure of the state. When such excessive power is concentrated in one body, it is a threat to the three-branched system of the democratic country and the democracy in it in general.
Zelensky’s role as protector of Ukraine’s sovereignty also changed his political positioning: the ban of pro-Russian propaganda channels was felt by eastern Ukrainian voters that supported him in 2019. Now Zelensky is trying for more support from national-patriotic voters.
In this case, it is worth taking a look at NSDC secretary Oleksii Danilov, definitely not a new face in Ukrainian politics, who served as Luhansk mayor in the 1990s. While Russian proxies occupy Luhansk, Danilov’s role as a pro-Ukrainian politician from Kremlin-occupied Luhansk fits into the concept of Zelensky’s new public image.
Zelensky’s shift is not something new in Ukrainian politics: while former President Leonid Kuchma was seen as a pro-Russian candidate in the 1994 presidential elections, he defeated the Communist Party’s candidate in 1999. Russia’s “brotherly love” — which includes theft of Crimea, military invasion, and vile propaganda — has made the Ukrainian president rethink his naïveté.
Viktor Karvatskyy and Artur Koldomasov are analysts with the Kyiv-based ADASTRA think tank.
