Almost all Russia’s wars begin with “false flag attacks”, that is to say, with organized attacks by special groups that pretend to be provocations from the opposite side. Although later the narratives change over time, in principle this is how the Kremlin’s “good-natured” discourse is reinforced, that “we had no choice” which it abuses so much to end up blaming the attacker for the attack. We have seen false flag attacks in Georgia, in Syria, in Crimea and we saw last year around this time in Donbas. According to the American Institute for the Study of WarRussia may be preparing something similar in Transnistria and Belarus.
Apparently, Ukrainian intelligence reportedly detected intense troop movements and vehicles with uniforms very similar to those of his army. This coincides with the constant warnings by the Kremlin environment of an attack of this type. In the case of Transnistria, a pro-Russian region divided in practice from Moldova and bordering Ukraine a few kilometers from Odesa, it would fit with the accusations recently made by the Moldovan president, Maia Sandu, in which she assured that Russia was preparing a coup. to expel the pro-Western government from the country.
It also squares, by the way, with the statements of the TASS agency on Thursday in which it warned precisely of an attempted Ukrainian invasion of Transnistria. Holy of what? Obviously it wasn’t specified, but that’s probably a way to go smoothing the ground for their own invasion attempt in defense of the Russian-speaking region close to the Kremlin. If this hypothesis is confirmed, Transnistria, until now with an alleged status of independence with respect to Moldova and Russia in equal parts, would become the land from where the army of Putin could try to attack Odessa and Kherson, two of his great objectives. The issue is finding men and weapons to move into that area.
The Belarusian problem
The ISW report focuses especially on the Belarusian case, although it must be admitted that much has been said about Belarus in the last year and not always correctly. Not even three days ago there were rumors of a rough annexation of the country by Russia, something that (so far) has not occurred. There is no doubt, in any case, that something is happening in Minsk. Alexander Lukashenkoa great ally of Putin, but reluctant from the beginning to get into a war with very little popular support and which could end up undermining his own regime, decided last week to arm 150,000 of his citizens.
The excuse given for the mobilization was, again, a possible attempted invasion of their territory. And who is the only country in the area that might be interested in invading Belarus? Of course, Ukraine… only Ukraine is neither interested in opening a new front nor does it have the means to do so. It seems, therefore, that all this is part of a “just in case” preparation for the aforementioned Russian false flag attack. If troops in Ukrainian uniform “enter” Belarus and attack its territory, Belarus would be forced to declare war and get into all the trouble. That, at least, they think in the Kremlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives at Moscow’s Red Square to attend the Victory Day military parade.
EFE
The problem, as we said, is that Lukashenko is not at all convinced of this. It is one thing for them to cede all their territory -and part of their weapons- to facilitate Russian attacks, as they did on February 24, 2022… and another thing is to actively participate in a conflict in which NATO is on the side of your enemy. These are big words for a relatively small country with little capacity for both defense and attack. The normal thing is that Putin does not have to ask Lukashenko for things twice, so mounting all this stratagem to get practical support from him is already a sign of division between the two governments.
In any case, the Russian intention remains, which seems clear. Then, he will be able to leave or not, that is, Transnistria and Moldova will be able to fall on his side or not, and the same can be said about Belarus, but if the Kremlin manages to extend the war to the western territories of the countryuntil now relatively calm, will have achieved one of its great objectives: that Ukraine will have to further stretch its battered army. Anything that comes out of Donbas or Kherson to defend Odesa, kyiv or Lvov, will then miss home on the offensive from the east.
Ukrainian servicemen attend joint drills of armed forces, national guards, border guards and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) at the border with Belarus.
The strategy has something devilish about it, but responds to the mental scheme that Putin has shown so far: See everyone who fights on your side as a means and not as an end. He did not mind sending thousands of convicts to their deaths in Bakhmut, he did not mind sending tens of thousands of mobilized people without any preparation to the Donbas front, and, of course, he is not going to care now what consequences it may have for Belarus or for Transnistria getting into a conflict in which they are nothing more than puppets.
We’ve been almost a month repeating the imminence of a second offensive, but we still do not know its form or its moment. Can these movements serve as preparation? It’s possible. What last year’s experience showed us is that you have to be very attentive to unexpected movements. They are usually significant. Winter is ending and spring is coming. In other words, Russia is running out of time.
