Page 86 - bne magazine February 2022_20220208

86 Opinion bne February 2022
There is very little chance that Russia will invade Ukraine, but the deals that Russian President Vladimir Putin is asking for will in effect return Europe to Cold War-like relations with Russia.
MOSCOW BLOG
Russia won’t invade Ukraine.
This crisis is more serious than that
Ben Aris in Berlin
Newspapers have been gleefully reporting about
a “possible” invasion of Ukraine by Russia since the end of October. But analysts – both Russian and international – are almost unanimous in the belief that
the chances of an actual invasion are almost zero.
As bne IntelliNews has reported in detail, the reasons
are obvious: it would be too costly in Russian lives, something that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
slowly falling approval and trust ratings make extremely unappealing to the Kremlin; while Russians overwhelmingly support the annexation of Crimea, they are a lot more uncomfortable with the war in Donbas; eastern Ukraine could be taken easily, but western Ukraine could not; and finally the international diplomatic backlash would be catastrophic for Russia’s economy.
And why bother? What would Russia gain? The only thing of value Ukraine has is agriculture, which would collapse in
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the event of an all-out war followed by an inevitable vicious and impassioned insurrection. On top of that, the Kremlin would take on the cost of fixing Ukraine at a time when it is struggling to fix Russia Inc. It’s not going to happen.
So what is actually going on here? As usual, all you have to do is listen to what Putin says. Putin has a history of telegraphing his moves well in advance. That was the big difference between Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who never said what he meant.
In Putin’s big set-piece speeches he lays out his plans in black and white and almost always follows through on them. But as it is Putin and as he has been so demonised in the last two decades a lot of what he says is ignored, or twisted to suit the various narratives used to describe Russia.
Putin said in his very first speech as president that demographics was the main danger to Russia and as we