The United States of America accurately predicted the start of the war in Ukraine, and sounded the alarm that Russian war was imminentDespite Moscow’s constant denials and Europe’s skepticism. But what is certain is that predicting how it might turn out is much more difficult.
Three separate back-channel diplomatic efforts are underway to start negotiations by the leaders of France, Israel and Turkey, and the new chancellor of Germany. But so far, they have all hit a wall at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to engage in any serious negotiations.
Models of the end of the conflict
In the Pentagon, there are models for the end of the conflict, a protracted war that will bring more unnecessary death and destruction to the nascent European democracy, while the other is for Putin to settle for what some believe was his original goal: “the conquest of the vast swath of the south and east that connects Russia to the peninsula of Crimea by land, which it annexed in 2014. And there is an even more horrific ending where NATO countries are directly immersed in the conflict, by accident or on purpose.
NATO forces in Romania
The latter possibility became clearer on Sunday, when Russian missiles landed in Ukraine’s western regions, an area so far unaffected by the 18-day-old conflict about ten miles from the Polish border.
And Russia announced over the weekend that continued efforts to move weapons through that area to Ukrainian forces would make the convoys “legitimate targets,” warning that just because weapons are massed on NATO territory does not mean they are immune to attack.
And in interviews with senior US and European officials in recent days, there has been consensus on one point “just as the past two weeks have revealed that the Russian military has stumbled upon the invasion plan and the two or three weeks to come may reveal whether Ukraine can survive as a country.” negotiating an end to the war.
Expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine
Now, what worries officials is that Putin may extend the fight beyond Ukraine. In private, officials express concern that Putin may seek to seize Moldova, another former Soviet republic that never joined NATO and is considered particularly vulnerable. There are also renewed concerns about Georgia, which went to war with Russia in 2008. Another possibility is that Putin, angry at the slow pace of his offensive in Ukraine, may reach for the use of other chemical, biological, nuclear and cyber weapons.
Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to President Biden, mentioned this scenario on Sunday, appearing on CBS: “Part of the reason Putin resorts to extreme tactics like the use of chemical weapons is that he is frustrated that his forces are not advancing.”
The White House and the US military’s top leadership are formulating how to respond to a series of escalations, including major cyber attacks on US financial institutions and Putin’s use of chemical or even nuclear weapons.
Kyiv fall
General Scott de Perrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers last week that there was a limit to how long Kyiv could hold out as Russian forces approached from the east, north and south. Within 10 days to two weeks.
It could take up to two weeks for Russian forces to encircle Kyiv and then at least another month to capture it, a senior US official said, and that would require a combination of sustained bombing and what could be weeks or months of “door-to-door” street fighting.