Judging by the events on the Ukraine-Russia border this weekend, it is clear that Moscow has gone from threat mode – having amassed over 150,000 troops on the border – to show mode, accusing Kyiv of attacking the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics."
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On Friday, leaders of self-proclaimed breakaway republics sounded the alarm accusing Ukraine of sabotaging a chemical plant in the region and announced the plan to evacuate hundreds of thousands of residents to Russia.
But the performance was quickly identified as just that.
For example, video metadata filmed near the chemical plant revealed that it had been recorded on Feb. 8, the week before. A similar inconsistency was also identified in the announcements: Both were broadcast on Friday but were recorded on Wednesday.
In other words, Moscow began telling the West of supposed Ukrainian aggression on the border and accused Kyiv of causing a humanitarian crisis in the area.
What is all this meant to accomplish? Most likely, Russia has chosen, for the time being, to continue escalating tensions on the assumption that at some point, the West will succumb to its demands at least when it comes to rejecting Ukraine's bid to join NATO and force Kyiv to implement the Minsk agreements, which grants Russian "special status" to areas held by pro-Russian separatists.
For Moscow, shifting Western pressure onto Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the optimal scenario: Russian President Vladimir Putin can agree to deescalate while simultaneously claiming victory over the West. But for Zelenskyy, any agreement to give up the Donbas region is tantamount to political suicide and could lead to a revolution since everyone in Ukraine is against more concessions to the separatists.
Besides staging an escalation on the border and a humanitarian crisis, Russia is also preparing for a second scenario in case the pressure does not bear fruit: Annexing separatist territories, which is not inconceivable. It will probably be done in a format that has already been tested and refined in Abkhazia and South Ossetia (2008) and the Crimean peninsula (2014).
Even before the big Russian performance in the Donbas, Putin told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Ukraine was committing "genocide" in the region. Moscow immediately began to investigate the sudden appearance of a mass grave and submitted a report to the United Nations about this supposed genocide. The "humanitarian crisis" began over the weekend, with all that is left for the separatist "republics" to do is appeal to Putin to protect them.
This was already alluded to by Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the lower house of the Russian parliament, who said that the Kremlin was not interested in a war, but if Russian citizens in Luhansk and Donetsk were facing danger, it would protect them. Moscow has granted Russian citizenship to over 750,000 residents of the separatist entities.
If this scenario, Russia has a lot to lose: It will – rightfully – be perceived as an occupying entity and as having violated the 2015 Minsk agreement, which will bring about harsh economic sanctions. On the other hand, the Kremlin might be hoping that the West will breathe a sigh of relief if Donetsk and Luhansk are annexed, for that cannot be compared to an all-out war. Then, negotiations can resume, until the next round, which will inevitably come.
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