One of the most common speeches from Russian propaganda, which we sometimes hear even from the mouths of its most representative leaders -Medvedev, Lavrov, Putin himself- is that Russia cannot be defeated. They do not refer to the military situation that their troops have to cede this or that terrain. It is a conceptual reflection: Russia, as a nuclear power, cannot lose a conventional war… because, if it loses it, it would resort to its atomic weapons and, in that case, we would all lose.
Every time a threat of this type arrives, we have trouble deciding what part is pure propaganda for internal consumption, a reminder to his people of the supposed greatness of their homeland, what part is deterring the enemy from continuing to send weapons that could complicate conventional victory even more… and how much is there of true apocalyptic delusion, of suicidal fanaticism that you can push at some point to make a historical mistake whose consequences we prefer not to ponder.
It seems that NATO, and especially the United States, have not been too clear about it during this time either. They know that they are walking on quicksand and that a balance must be found between fair support for a savagely attacked nation and the practical sense of not escalate hostilities to points of no return. With the aggravating factor, moreover, that this calculation can be interpreted as a weakness by a mind that sees in the weakness of others one more reason for the attack and not a gesture of mere prudence.
[Sabotaje o accidente: Ucrania sospecha de Rusia tras la muerte de su ministro del Interior]
In this sense, all the massive arms shipments to Ukraine since last March have come with conditions. The purpose has in any case been defensive, something that, in fact, has repeatedly annoyed Volodimir Zelensky and senior officials of the Ukrainian army. They want weapons with which to win the war against Russia and recover their territorial integrity. The West is still unclear if it really wants Russia to lose big, with all the consequences. He can’t make up his mind.
What is right now “Russian soil”?
One of the basic red lines imposed on kyiv by the Pentagon is the impossibility of attacking Russian soil with American weapons. Here we have a major problem, because it is very difficult to know exactly what one means by “Russian soil”. Strictly speaking, Russia has unilaterally decided that Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Lugansk, in their entirety, are provinces of its federation. Strictly speaking, therefore, an attack on any of these territories should activate the existential defense protocols that include the use of nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian soldiers fire a mortar at the front line.
However, not only has Russia not responded with nuclear weapons to attacks on the occupied territories in those regions, but since its illegal annexation, even has been unilaterally withdrawn from them, as happened with the city of Kherson and the west side of the Dnieper river last November. The Ukraine, therefore, can attack these regions because even the Russians do not believe what they themselves have proclaimed. At the other extreme would be the territories internationally recognized as Russian and bordering Ukraine, that is, the Belgorod, Kursk, Rostov, Voronezh and Bryansk provinces.
However, the question from the beginning has been what to do with Crimea. What status to give him, which in turn is determined by what status the Russians give him. It is not without significance that the only time Putin crossed the border to show himself in a war zone was after the explosion of the Kerch bridge. This gesture clearly speaks of the importance that Crimea and, specifically, its capital, Sevastopol, have for Moscow. Both from the cultural and political point of view, as well as from the economic one. We are talking about a port that controls the entire Black Sea with its imposing presence, with all that that entails.
[Biden se plantea aumentar su ayuda a Zelenski para que Ucrania intente reconquistar Crimea]
Crimea as a bargaining chip
The United States intuits that Crimea is a real red line… and that crossing it would mean an unpredictable reaction on the part of Russia. That, obviously, forces you to handle it very carefully, but at the same time exposes a weakness: when there is something you do not want to lose, you have two options: engage in nuclear missiles with the world and ensure your own destruction… or negotiate. But not to negotiate with other people’s territories, as Putin intends if he really wants something, but to negotiate with what you consider yours and see in danger.
In these terms it is necessary to understand the information published this Thursday by the New York Timesaccording to which the Biden administration would be willing to send more and more weapons in order to at least threaten the peninsula. The game is extremely subtle: according to the Times, the United States wants Ukraine to appear powerful enough to be able to launch into the Crimea successfully… but at the same time it does not want it to. He simply wants the threat to force a fair negotiation and not the infamous cession that the Kremlin fantasizes about.
Now, this attempt to put Russia against the wall to force it to sit at the table on at least an equal footing has its problems. It is not easy to tell a country that is suffering what Ukraine is suffering to adhere to conservative strategies. If the United States really arms Ukraine in order to retake Crimea – illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 – who can be sure that its troops are really going to stop on the border of a territory that belongs to them?
Likewise, if Washington changes its doctrine and allows the attack with HIMARS and other similar missile systems on the peninsula, what reaction can be expected from Russia? A full-scale nuclear attack is out of the question, but what about the use of some kind of unconventional weapon that will force the international community into a forceful response? Putting Putin in a bind is delicate because we don’t know how he will react and we fear the worst. At the same time, compromising has not been of much use over the years. The dilemma is there and it has its risks. Washington seems willing to take them on.
