Pro-Russian separatists have stirred up tension in eastern Ukraine over the past few days, occupying and taking control of building in as many as 10 Ukrainian cities.
The chances of a full-fledged Russian invasion of Ukraine have grown, U.S. officials and observers say. The White House has openly accused Moscow of supporting the pro-Russian separatists - or, as they have called them, "provocateurs."
The Ukrainian government issued an ultimatum on Monday to the separatists - one that has now expired and, so far, gone largely unenforced through any military or diplomatic pressures. The reality is that Kiev has few plausible options, but if it does respond with force, Russia is expected to use it as a pretext for invasion.
The Royal United Services Institute, a security and defense think tank based in London, published a report and map last week outlining Russia's potential moves into Ukraine and redeployments of forces (via Foreign Policy):
RUSI
The map lays out Russia's possible military options in Ukraine. The authors of the report - Igor Sutyagin, a research fellow at RUSI, and Michael Clarke, the Institute's director general - write Russia has about 50,000 troops lined up on the border.
As the authors see it, there are four military options for Russia:
- The first is the build-up is simply "muscle-flexing" by Russia, the authors wrote, for it to achieve its goal of wielding more influence in local Ukrainian governments. That scenario, however, is not likely.
- The second: Russia is playing out the "Crimea scenario" with the corridor that connects Crimea to Russia - Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson. Russia would "covertly support" or even openly engineer civil unrest en route to annexation.
- The third: "Unrest and separatist pressures in south and eastern Ukraine, real or manufactured, may present a dangerous, but nevertheless tempting opportunity to split the country in two, south and east of the Dnieper River." Russian troops are currently well-positioned for this scenario, but it would be even more aggressive.
- The fourth scenario posits Russia could go even further, wherein Russian troops execute a move of "grand strategy" and "create a western corridor from Transnistria in Moldova into Crimea through Odessa and Mykolaiv Oblasts, which would encompass the historic city of Odessa itself." This scenario seems highly unlikely at this point, but the report's authors argued there are reasons to think it could happen, given the fact that key Ukrainian suppliers of the Russian defense industry are located in eastern Ukraine. But the authors also said it would be a very "nineteenth century way of looking at a twenty-first century relationship."