Victory Day will be coming up very shortly in Russia.
In an ordinary year, Russians celebrate May 9th as the anniversary
of Germany’s surrender during World War II. It was a huge celebration during the Soviet times.
And it has returned to form since Vladimir Putin rose to power.
Huge parades, patriotic celebrations,
praise for World War II veterans, big speeches, that sort of thing.
This year, it appears to have taken on new significance.
Russia is in the middle of a war with Ukraine. In theory, Putin could use Victory Day
2022 as a high-profile forum to make a declaration of Russia’s new official policy.
With that in mind, and informed by the latest research in political science,
here are four options Putin might pursue in the upcoming days.
Number 1: Escalate the War This seems to be the most popular
take on Victory Day as of late. The idea here is that there is no better time to announce a surge.
After all, Putin has sold the conflict to his public as a war on fascism, making this
a continuation of World War II’s goals. However, this comes with significant risks
to Putin. It’s easy to shorthand Putin’s position in Russia as an autocrat. But there
are varieties of autocracies. Putin is not Idi Amin,
or Saddam Hussein or Mumamar Gaddafi.
He is not all-powerful. Instead, he has to work through institutional constraints.
The reason that Putin insists that the invasion of Ukraine is not a “war” but
rather a “special military operation” is because a war has a specific legal meaning in Russia.
Declaring war would allow him to mobilize force levels that are not currently possible.
But it also means that he has to convince other stakeholders in Russia to go along with it.
And there is reason to be cautious. We have previously discussed how autocracies fall when
citizens coordinate on resistance all at the same time. When they vastly outnumber security forces,
it is difficult to stop the uprising. Declaring war by itself could help
coordinate protestors like that. Doing it in such a public way only strengthens the signal.
Failing to gauge the mood of a large audience has gravely
cost an Eastern European autocrat in the past. On December 21, 1989, Nicolae Ceausecu gave a
speech in front of 100,000 people to condemn an uprising that began five days earlier.
Ceausecu misjudged the situation. The crowd began jeering him. He tried to placate the rising mob
by offering raises to the state’s workers. That failed. Three days later,
Ceausecu’s rule over Romania had ended. Such an outcome seems unlikely in Russia.
To the best of our knowledge, Putin remains popular among his people.
But it’s still something he needs to worry about. And this takes us to the next option:
Number 2: Do Nothing Less of a strategy and more of a non-strategy,
Putin might just treat Victory Day 2022 like he would any other Victory Day.
If the status quo of war has led to a rally-round-the-flag effect for Putin,
why risk ruining it with a larger engagement that will lead to more Russian casualties?
Despite the attention surrounding Victory Day, it seems that almost all of the speculation
about escalatory steps is coming from pundits in Washington and elsewhere in the western world.
There is a lack of hard intelligence from sources to suggest that anything
will actually happen on Victory Day. And there is good reason to think that
Putin won’t do much with his public appearance. It was only a month ago that Russia pivoted away
from Kyiv to focus its attack on the Donbas front in the east and the Crimean front in the south.
It appears that not much at all has happened since then.
It might make sense to wait to see how the next battle with Ukraine pans out
before making another major pivot in the war.
Instead, Putin could use the opportunity to discuss the successes Russia has seen in the south
and in the east, perhaps declare the capture of Mariupol, and generally just enjoy the photo op.
Number 3: Declare Victory Continuing down the spectrum of
possibilities, Putin could declare victory and indicate his intent to end the war.
There is a reasonable narrative for Putin to give here.
Russia desperately wanted a land bridge to connect to Crimea to the rest of Russia
and to secure waterflow to the area. They have basically accomplished that.
It’s even plausible that Russia might retreat from some of the areas they currently occupy,
as was the case
at the end of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. The other clear goal was to establish better
control over the Russian-backed separatist regions in the east.
This has not been a full success. At the start of the conflict,
those separatists controlled roughly these areas.
Russia has made some progress toward the goal since then, which Putin could sell as a victory.
However, within each of the oblasts, Ukraine still has control over a number of the cities.
What’s critical to this strategy is that Putin must believe that the current distribution is good
enough to satisfy his constituents. If it’s not, Putin would need to “gamble for resurrection”,
something that we have covered in a previous video.
Of course, it is one thing to declare “mission accomplished”.
It’s another thing to actually end all combat. Just ask George W. Bush about what
happened after his May 1, 2003 speech. And that was in a war where the attacker
militarily defeated its opponent, something that Russia has not come close to doing.
For the war to stop, Ukraine must also at least tacitly agree to the
division that Putin might implicitly propose. And it’s far from obvious that they would.
Ukraine has seen military successes in the war. They have also received support from just about
every NATO country, and also from Ireland,
Austria, Sweden,
Finland, and Japan.
There is no guaranteeing that Zelensky would agree to giving up parts of Ukraine’s
territory if he feels flush with resources. What may happen instead is a return to the
pre-February 2022 levels of fighting in Donbas. And if Putin decides to hold onto southern
Ukraine, perhaps the`` same level of fighting would spread there as well.
Number 4: No Show
This is an incredibly unlikely outcome, but it would certainly be the most intriguing.
Putin has isolated himself throughout the pandemic and into the invasion of Ukraine,
and not just on the international stage. There has been some speculation that part
of this is to protect himself from a mystery rival initiating a coup.
And there have been reports of Putin instituting purges to hedge against that.
To be clear, these fears haven’t stopped Putin from holding large rallies since the war began.
But if Putin no-shows the Victory Day festivities, that’s a major sign something is wrong.
Do you think something else might happen on Victory Day? Let me know in the comments.
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