Russia's War in Ukraine: What is Putin's Endgame?

As Russian troops started amassing on the Ukrainian border in late 2021, the European Union along with NATO grew increasingly worried, seeing the threat of a Russian invasion grow by the day. NATO issued a statement condemning this buildup of tensions and touted their support for the sovereignty of Ukraine. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s dependence on Russia gradually declined as it opened up to Europe and the West, eroding Moscow’s influence over Kyiv. The many former Soviet republics such as Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia joined the North Atlantic Treaty, and along with this, Putin explains, came a growing and dangerous anti-Russia sentiment. At the time, Putin justified the military buildup by explaining that Ukraine threatened Russia, and not the other way around.

In his speech on the day of the invasion, Putin declares that with the fall of the USSR, the balance of powers was broken, and this allowed the West to influence international law and modify or break it to fit their foreign policy. He names the invasion of Iraq and the UN intervention in the Libyan civil war as examples, stating that events such as this caused a mass exodus from the middle east and created a migrant crisis in Europe. Putin sees NATO as a tool for Western foreign policy and wants to stop its expansion eastward. The West benefits from having a NATO-supporting or even a neutral Ukraine, as it undermines Russia’s influence over Europe and the world, and, Putin says, creates more power imbalances in international politics.

From there on, Putin paints a bleak picture of the situation in the Donbas, a region with a strong Russian diaspora, and where Russian is the main language. Ever since the Maidan revolution in 2014, Ukraine had been divided into pro-Russia and pro-Europe camps, and the unlawful annexation of Crimea by Russia only served to escalate the situation. A strong independence movement emerged in the Donbas, spearheaded by the Luhansk and the Donetsk People’s Republic. The Ukrainian government kept a tight leash on the pro-Russian region, with many heavy altercations between Ukraine and the DPR and LPR. Putin has long used the protection of Russians in other countries as a justification for his neo-imperial ambitions, a fact that has been made evident in the 2014 annexation of Crimea. In a somewhat similar situation, after recognizing the states as sovereign despite the rest of the world considering those territories to be Ukraine, Putin sent in the military to assist them and stop what he called a genocide on ethnically Russian Ukrainians. However, scholars agree that there is neither genocide nor ethnic cleansing by Ukraine over ethnic Russians and that this claim is merely a tool for justifying the aggression.

 Three days after recognizing the states of LPR and DPR, Russian troops invaded Ukraine to “demilitarize and denazify” the country. In his speech, Putin depicts Ukraine as rampant with neo-Nazis, a bold statement with interesting roots, likely based on paramilitary groups like the Azov Battalion. The group is described as a right-wing extremist, a neo-Nazi unit of the Ukrainian national guards, which was heavily financed and backed by the U.S. government after the events of 2014 in Crimea when the international community decided it was in its best interest to arm Ukraine against further Russian aggression. It was reported in 2014 that close to 20% of the unit’s members considered themselves Nazis, wearing Nazi insignias during parades. While this is unacceptable and should be addressed in time by the Ukrainian government, it only represents a minority of the Ukrainian forces and the population in general. 

It seems Putin once again used misrepresented facts in order to justify his aggression. Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine last Wednesday answered questions regarding Putin’s intentions, but it also posed a perplexing one: What is his endgame?

Putin’s best-case scenario is to replace the Ukrainian government with a puppet regime close to the Kremlin. However, with the unexpected resistance Russian forces are facing right now, it is unlikely that Zelensky would ever give up his position or his people. Even if Kyiv were to be taken by force, the outright resistance against Russia from Ukrainians would prove difficult. Bringing about the end of the democratic regime in Kyiv is also not likely from a numerical perspective, considering Russia does not have an adequate military force in the region to occupy a country of this size. Thus, it seems that Russia will try to crush the Ukrainian forces as much as it can while putting pressure on its economy to the point that continuing to fight would become impossible. Continuing to fight will be too costly for Ukraine, considering the country requested $1.4 billion in emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund.

When discussing Putin’s intentions, one cannot disregard the geopolitical position of Ukraine, specifically its access to the Black Sea. Historically, a drive to access warm water ports has been a significant part of Russia’s foreign policy calculations. Moscow views the region of the Black Sea as vital for its geoeconomics. It is a gateway into the Mediterranean, and Russia is dependent on the passageway from the Black Sea to conduct military operations and export its main commodity, hydrocarbons. As the Mediterranean is mainly NATO-occupied, access to this warm sea would expand Russian political and economic influence in the region.

Given the facts, it would make sense that Moscow would pay attention to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports of Mariupol, Kherson, and Odessa. As Ukraine’s economy is dependent on exporting agricultural products through these channels, a Russian blockade would give Putin a considerable economic advantage. However, this scenario is also not without problems. Impeding an attack to these ports would require Russia to deploy a large number of its naval infantry, which are currently deployed mainly in Syria. Moreover, to deploy these forces, the ships would have to cross the Turkish-controlled straits of Bosphorus and Dardanelles. According to the Montreux Convention, during peacetime, Turkey allows the passage of military vessels of Black Sea nations. However, during wartime, even if Turkey is not a participant, Ankara has the right to invoke Article 19 of the convention, blocking the entry of the naval infantry of all fighting nations. Ukraine already asked Ankara to block Russian ships, and on the 1st of March, Turkey denied the sailing of Russian warships into the Black Sea. So, exerting more control over the Black Sea seems also unlikely due to the Ankara-controlled straits.

What other option is there for Putin? The most likely plan is to establish Luhansk and Donetsk as puppet states controlled by Russia such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is also unlikely that Putin would ever let go of Crimea, so it seems as though his master plan is limited to the Eastern and Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine.

If Putin does have an endgame, it is difficult to determine what it is at this point. Though one thing is clear, Russia should not expect Ukraine to become a friendly-puppet state. Reports are now emerging of Russian soldiers in Ukraine being surprised by the heavy resistance they face, claiming they expected to be welcomed with open arms as saviors. Morale seems to be low for the Russian forces currently engaged in the conflict, and meanwhile, some Ukrainians are emerging as national heroes. Articles are emerging of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his exemplary display of leadership, or international athletes flying back to their country to help defend it. S Ukraine has been able to hold back the Russian forces for so long, and it is becoming apparent that Russia will feel the impacts of the invasion for years to come due to heavy economic sanctions, public denunciations at the global scale, Russian athletes being barred from competing in some events, the removal of Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system, reprisals against Russian oligarchs around the world, and more.

Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on the premises of liberating ethnic Russians from oppression, stopping the expansion of NATO to preserve the balance of power, and cracking down on neo-Nazis within the country. These reasons have all been cleverly manipulated in order to misrepresent the underlying truths they hold and serve as justification for military aggression in Europe that could potentially escalate even further and become the deadliest European conflict since the Second World War.