On 1 February 2022, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, signed papers recognising
the independence at the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Just two days later, he ordered a full-scale invasion of the country.
Although events are unfolding quickly,
there's little doubt that this marks a profound moment in modern international relations.
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflicts, security and statehood.
So the first question is what does Putin expect to achieve?
And this is actually really difficult to answer.
Had it been the case that Russia had simply recognised Donetsk and Luhansk
and then sent in its troops - perhaps then pushing out to take control of the entire
Donbas region - I think we would have been fairly clear as to what this was all about.
There was for a long time speculation that this would really be Russia's goal.
Now there was talk that Russia could actually do what it is doing now,
which is to try and take the whole of the country, but I think most observers felt by any standards
that would just be too far of a stretch.
How do you then control all of Ukraine?
So I think the feeling was that it would probably have been a far more limited action of taking
Luhansk and Donetsk and then proclaiming them probably to be part of the Russian Federation.
But the fact that Putin has instead ordered what looks to be a maneuver that's aimed to overthrow
the government of Ukraine raises much much more serious questions about where this is going to go
because it does raise a real issue
about who will be the internationally recognised government of Ukraine.
Now of course Russia is going to recognize any proxy puppet
administration that it puts into power in Kiev.
But of course for the west this is going to have no legitimacy at all.
Ukraine does remain an independent sovereign state.
And it does remain a member of the United Nations.
And so there will be real questions about who recognises these two administrations
and how is the country recognised and represented at the United Nations.
So I think there are going to be very very real questions that if this proxy
government is put in place then what will be its international standing.
On top of this, I think we also have to consider what will be its domestic standing.
What does Russia propose?
I mean it can obviously clearly use its military force to put in place an administration,
but this then suggests that it's going to have to be a long-term Russian presence
in Ukraine because this government is not going to have popular legitimacy.
I would imagine that one of the things that Russia will try and do
after a certain period of time - whether that's shorter or longer - is
try and give it some sort of veneer of democratic legitimacy by orchestrating
what I think we can safely say will be highly manipulated and fixed elections to then be
able to say, "look we have put it to the people, and the people now accept this administration."
But one suspects that there will be a deep deep opposition to Russian control.
This puppet government that will be put in place
won't be popularly accepted and that we could in fact see an insurgency against it.
And all this suggests that it looks likely that Russia will have to retain
a very strong military presence in Ukraine for the foreseeable future and that this will effectively
become a mechanism for policing the situation and making sure
that that proxy regime that's been put in place is allowed to stay in power.
So I think whatever we see happen in the next few weeks, in the case that Russia does
manage to orchestrate the removal of the current democratically elected government and put in place
some sort of puppet regime that this is likely to see a long-term Russian involvement in Ukraine.
The next question is how are we likely to see the war evolve.
I think what's really really important to to recognise is that
lots of people are genuinely very worried about this.
There is this worry about the escalation of the conflict that we're seeing.
I don't think it's helpful, but we are seeing people saying this is start of World War Three.
I think we need to park that sort of language for the moment.
I think what's really important to note is that Western countries have made it very
clear they have no intention of going to war with Russia over Ukraine.
Now, for a lot of people that might be a difficult message to hear.
There will be a lot of people who believe that the West should be providing direct military support
to Ukraine and that also means sending troops into Ukraine.
But that just really isn't a feasible option.
By all means, I think the western countries are saying, look, we can supply these countries - we
can supply Ukraine - with arms. We'll take all sorts of measures, as we're seeing against Russia.
But sending in troops will lead to escalation and I think that there is a general sense
that we are dealing with a nuclear-armed country with an extremely strong military.
It is just not an issue to go to war over this.
Again, there will be a lot of people who feel that we have to take a stand against Putin.
Yes. But this is not the red line that's been drawn.
What I think becomes far more worrying is that if there is any step taken
by Russia to try and extend out this conflict.
So, I think, as tragic as it is, there is probably a sense in Western countries
that Ukraine is lost - at least for the meantime.
That it will take extremely punitive measures against Russia and what i think we have seen is
a very clear line in the sand that's been drawn by the NATO alliance that even if Ukraine does
fall to Russia that any further steps into any NATO member will be met with a strong response.
So, I think what we've probably seen here is, if you like, a de facto agreement that unfortunately
Ukraine will have to be given up, but any further steps from that will be met with strong reaction.
And this isn't to say that there will be no consequences for Russia for doing this.
There will quite clearly be very very severe consequences.
We're already seeing that at the moment.
We've seen the effects of the first measures.
The first tranche of measures and sanctions against Russia is going
to have an enormous effect on the Russian economy.
But I think it's safe to say that there is no interest whatsoever
in trying to escalate this militarily.
And this brings us to the third question.
Even if we don't see a military conflict emerge between Russia and the West,
are we now moving into what we might regard as a new Cold War?
I think all indications would have to be that this is something that already we're seeing.
A lot of figures sort of pointing out that
this just really represents a fundamental break with Russia.
It's been a long time coming.
We can go back we can rake over the reasons why this might have happened.
The faults and steps when different decisions could have been made
that could have stopped this from happening.
But essentially we are where we are now and I think you know we have to accept
that there will be no rapprochement with with with Russia under President Putin.
Having done this, it seems very very difficult to see how anything can change short of Putin
giving up absolute control of Ukraine and then making it very clear that he
genuinely wants a positive relationship with the West.
But I think there's too much mistrust.
So I think we are going to see a very very difficult situation.
But whether this is going to be a long term - remembering of course that the Cold War
effectively went on for 45 years - whether we're going to see the same
this time round, I think the hope is that if we can get beyond the Putin-era
then we might then start to see something different emerge.
We might to start to see a new regime hopefully come to power in Russia that
might be more open to engagement with the West and we can start to rebuild relations.
There are also lots of questions that were raised about what this is going to mean for NATO.
So, I think it's an immediate step what we will probably see
is that there will be a significant increase in spending across all NATO members.
The expectation has long been that NATO members are expected
to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defence.
For many years, the majority of NATO members have actually fallen far short of that measure.
I think what we will now see is a real move to step up defence spending.
But I think on top of that there are going to also be questions about what the future of NATO is.
One of the most interesting things we've seen in in recent weeks of course was
the suggestion by Finland and Sweden - two countries that are officially
neutral - that they might look to NATO membership.
I think that this is going to become a very real question now for a number of
the countries that aren't members of NATO, for example Cyprus and Malta in the mediterranean.
Interestingly, Ireland as well. This is a country that is neutral,
but it too has recently seen pressure from Russia.
Will we start to see in those countries in Europe that aren't NATO members questions about what
their future is; that maybe it is time to consider joining NATO in the face of what we can see now
is a much greater Russian threat, not necessarily to them, but joining NATO as an act of solidarity.
Looking beyond this,
I think the most immediate worry that we're going to be seeing is in the Baltic Republics.
Now, of course, these have been part of the Soviet Union.
They were forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union during the Second World War,
but their occupation by the Soviet Union had never
been recognised by many western countries - including the United States and Britain.
They reclaimed their independence in 1991, but there has been a long-standing worry
that Russia continues to covet them.
Two of them have fairly substantial Russian populations.
Whether, as we're seeing at the moment in Ukraine,
President Putin will use that as a pretext for acting against them?
To go in to defend the Russian populations in these territories.
Of course, this is a real worry.
But, again, I think it's important to emphasise
that Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania are members of NATO.
And I think that there is a genuine commitment amongst NATO members that any attempt to set foot
on NATO territory will be resisted.
As President Biden said not one inch of nato territory will be ceded.
I think that there is a genuine feeling that their sovereignty, their territorial
integrity, and their independence is just simply not up for negotiation.
If Russia takes any step against it then NATO will be forced to take action.
So, I think the immediate sense of a worry about an attack on the Baltics needs to be measured.
I think Moscow knows this would absolutely be a game changer.
Internationally, the biggest issue that many people seem to be raising
is what does this mean for China and Taiwan.
I think that what we're seeing at the moment with China and the invasion of Ukraine is
is very interesting in in all sorts of ways.
China has so far markedly refused to condemn the invasion.
It was very telling that when the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry was asked
about the invasion she pushed back very hard on this use of language of invasion.
But I think underneath it there's actually a rather interesting story to be told
because, of course, we have seen a growing closer relationship between Russia and China.
But China will also be acutely aware that what we're seeing in Ukraine creates
a very difficult political and legal situation for itself.
On the one hand, it wants to retain the right to intervene in its own internal affairs.
So, it would argue Taiwan is a breakaway territory.
"We reserve the right to take military action to retain our sovereignty, our territorial integrity
and if we want to invade Taiwan and retake it that is our sovereign right to do so."
So, it wants to send out that message.
But on the other hand what we're seeing in Ukraine is not about Russia
protecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
What we're seeing in Ukraine is an example of Russia laying claim to territory
that belongs to another country and invading and occupying it.
If we're to be very honest, China has always been very worried about separatism and about secession
in the past because it fears again that Taiwan
might try and go down that separatist-secessionist route.
China has traditionally taken quite a tough line on separatism.
So I would imagine that Beijing is sort of rather caught
in a bind with what we're seeing at the moment.
On the one hand, it wants to retain a good working relationship with Russia.
And I don't think for one moment Beijing is going to be at all unhappy
to see this catastrophic break between Russia and the West.
I think that it will probably be rather pleased
that it's going to make Russia far more reliant on it.
And let's not pretend that this is going to be a partnership of equals,
because it clearly isn't going to be a partnership of equals.
I think in the modern world we can see that China is moving in a very different direction
and one can actually imagine that Russia might regret this decision in the longer term.
But, for the meanwhile, I think Beijing is caught in a very interesting situation.
It obviously has this relationship with Putin that it wants to see develop, that it wants to
see evolve, but it will be very nervous about the principle of separatism and secessionism.
But on the other hand it won't want to necessarily
push the idea of military intervention off the table.
So, it is a worrying time.
I think as as well we need to take some moments to to think about what is happening in Ukraine.
I think it it's very easy for us as outside observers sitting at a distance
to look at this in very sanitised terms.
But what we are seeing is a war.
We're seeing loss of life.
We're seeing people being forced from their homes, people becoming refugees.
People who will be sustaining terrible terrible injuries, life-changing into injuries.
This is going to have an enormous effect on an entire country.
So I think as much as it's tempting to sort take this sort of
distant political view of the situation, I think it's also really really important
to to to spare some thought for exactly what's going on on the ground.
I think also one final thing that is also important to bear in mind is that
for all the criticism I think we can have a Vladimir Putin - and I
certainly certainly believe that this is somebody who is now a fundamental threat
to international peace and security and I think has done disastrous things
to Russia - we do see signs that many ordinary Russians stand against his rule.
We can hope that maybe at some point we will start to see an improvement of relations.
We can look to a post-Putin era.
But, in the meantime, those are just some thoughts on
the disastrous the terrible events that we're seeing playing out at the moment.
Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.