U.S. Signals Support for Ukraine Amid Russia Build-Up
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiyi Reznikov is in Washington today to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as the United States continues to show support for Ukraine amid tensions with Russia over a recent military buildup.
Although the meeting is meant to signal support for Ukraine during the latest strain in relations with its eastern neighbor, it’s not the only constituency Austin is trying to connect with, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, director of the transatlantic security program at the Center for a New American Security told Foreign Policy.
“I think the audience for this meeting is both the Kremlin and also European allies because their eyes are focused very much on what’s happening in Belarus,” said Kendall-Taylor, who briefly served as senior director for Russia and Central Asia on U.S. President Joe Biden’s National Security Council.
“I don’t think Europe has come around to the same degree of concern and view of seriousness of where I think the U.S. administration is,” Kendall-Taylor added.
The buildup has come while Belarus and Poland navigate a border standoff, with EU and Polish leaders accusing Belarus of encouraging migrants to cross into EU territory. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sees the two as linked, and accused Belarus of raising tensions in order to distract from Russia’s activities near Ukraine.
The unusual nature of the Russian troop and equipment movements near the Ukrainian border has alarmed analysts and the Biden administration. Unlike in April, this build-up doesn’t line up with scheduled military exercises and has added to hardware already left in place in those previous maneuvers.
Recent satellite imagery analysis from the Center Strategic and International Studies found that the increase in troops includes elements of the 41st Combined Arms Army, a group usually stationed 2,000 miles away from its current position.
That doesn’t mean Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the political decision to deploy those military units, and risk tearing up months of carefully calibrated U.S.-Russia diplomacy. “It comes down to the question: What is Putin’s calculus?” Kendall-Taylor said. “I think Putin respects Biden, but he would easily be willing to jeopardize Biden’s approach to a stable and predictable relationship if his calculus is that he’s thinking about legacy.”
“I think he’s thinking about the fact that the current trajectory in Ukraine is not moving in Russia’s favor. And Russia has learned that if you can’t do it politically then you do it militarily. And so that’s the risk.”
Putin may give a deeper insight into his own analysis of the situation during a speech to Russian diplomats today in Moscow.
So is this all a grand plan to help Russian troops march on Kiev? Unlikely, Jeff Hawn writes in Foreign Policy. To Hawn, the slow pace of the build up seems more likely to be a change in general strategic posture across its regional military commands than a pretext for war.
Between the prospect of international condemnation and being forced to face Ukraine’s advanced capabilities and motivated military, the costs of a Russian invasion would likely be too high.
“Russia may indeed see conditions someday where an invasion of Ukraine would be to its advantage,” Hawn writes. “But today, if Russia were to attack Ukraine it would have a lot to lose for almost no gain.”