2014

"A further Russian military intervention in Ukraine would not only be damaging to the security of both Ukraine and Europe. It could also entail significant military-strategic risks for Russia, reducing its military options in other strategic directions such as Central Asia and the Caucasus. While Russian officials still claim they have a one-million-strong army, it may still face military-strategic overstretch should the Kremlin decide to launch extended combat operations in Ukraine. What are the reasons for this? What military options are available to secure Russia from perceived threats in its western strategic direction? What risks do operations beyond Crimea entail?"

Eurasian World, 2022

In the spring of 2021, particularly in March and April, international news agencies began reporting Russian military build-up along Ukraine's borders and in the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Although the war rhetoric in news agencies relatively softened over the summer, it has begun to escalate once again starting in October 2021 which led to Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine on 24 February 2022. This article seeks to answer the following questions: Why did Russia decide to invade Ukraine despite its upper hand in the peace negotiations with Kyiv? What is Russia’s endgame in Ukraine? Should we focus on relations between Russia and the United States, bypassing Ukraine, to find out a plausible explanation for the war? To what extent do Putin’s personal desires play a role in escalating tensions?

2023

In addition to the unexpected resistance of Ukrainian forces, Russian forces were unable to achieve their initial objectives mainly because they found themselves fighting on the fronts spanning more than 2,000 km in the north, east, and south. I t has been already more than one and a half years since Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, Russia has several times changed the goals of its so-called Special Military Operation in Ukraine since 24 February 2022. The course of the invasion is quite dynamic just like the usual nature of war. In the initial months of the war, Russian forces had to change tactics following their failure to achieve their original objectives such as to install a puppet regime in Kyiv, if not to liquidate Ukraine as a sovereign country.

Marshall Center Security Insights, 2019

Russian policy towards Ukraine can be interpreted as a form of “strategic deterrence,” in which Moscow seeks to achieve its goals in Ukraine through a policy of active containment and strategic patience while avoiding overt military conflict. In current Russian usage, “strategic deterrence” is the use of both military and non-military means to prevent strategic gains by an opponent. It combines military means short of the use of force, such as an aggressive military build-up, with non-military tactics, including diplomacy, peace negotiations, information warfare, and political tactics. This strategy has allowed Russia to consolidate control of the Crimean peninsula, the Donbas region, and the Kerch Strait with only limited use of regular military forces. In the longer term, however, the strategic deterrence mindset poses problems for Russia. First, it escalates every local conflict in Russia’s borderlands into a high-level strategic game between Russia and the West, ensuring a long-term crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West, and limiting Russia's influence inside Ukraine. Second, instead of resolving conflicts, it produces militarized, stalemate-prone outcomes, leaving Russia entangled in a belt of semi-frozen conflicts around its borders.

The beginning of the twenty-first century was marked by a proliferation of hybrid wars, fought between flexible and sophisticated adversaries engaged in asymmetric conflicts using various forms of warfare according to the purpose and timing. The emergence of this kind of war specifically for the new globalized economy, increasingly integrated and polarized, has questioned traditional and conventional military thinking, generated a debate on the definition of the new concept of hybrid war and appropriate measures to take, in order to adapt to the new reality imposed by it. The violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine that broke out in 2014 has become a case study for hybrid conflict thru which Russia revealed only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reinforce its imperialistic view on foreign policy. Russia will continue to wage a massive propaganda and information warfare campaign with the ultimate goal of undermining NATO and the EU by creating a pro-Russian narrative and even political change. This part of hybrid warfare will not easily disappear: it has been part of Russian thinking for over half of a century. This article focuses on the Russian strategy of indirect warfare during the Ukrainian crisis, providing also an analytical overview of the political developments of relations between Russia and the EU following the 2014 events in Ukraine.

Horizon Insights

2016

Russia’s war in the Ukraine drags on. While Russia’s ‘new generation warfare’ tactics have proven highly effective, a decisive victory seems increasingly unlikely. Russia seems trapped, unable to end or exit a conflict that has so far killed almost 10,000 people, including some 500 Russian soldiers. Even so, Russia’s new way of warfare, so impressively demonstrated in the Ukraine, is increasingly worrying the US and NATO. There are real concerns that.....

Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, 2023

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

At the end of 2016 and early in 2017, Russia carried out a number of actions against Ukraine. The paper describes possible steps of Russia in the development of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It is shown that there is the possibility of dividing Ukraine into three parts: a) the Eastern part-under the control of the subordinate Russia of the former president of Ukraine V. Yanukovich; b) the Central one under the control of the existing power of P. Poroshenko; and c) the Western one (which will develop towards integration into Poland, Hungary and Romania). This development of events may well satisfy all international players in the event that Russia takes the initiative to convene the "Second Helsinki Declaration" (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe). The authorities in Ukraine are losing the opportunity to prevent Russia's actions, but possible actions are described in the article.