Russia’s brinkmanship with Nato allies threatens widening the war in Ukraine to the Baltic, the Balkans and beyond. The probing and testing by multiple drone and manned aircraft missions in the past fortnight are the beginning of a new phase.
The core European allies like Germany, France and the Nordic powers are now taking the lead in support for Ukraine – and their semi-detached European partners Spain, Italy and the UK will be required to help, too, however reluctantly.
That this could turn into a hot war confrontation between Russia and Nato allies is a strong possibility within months. The current wave of probes and provocation could easily lead to miscalculation and military accident.
This week Estonia demanded a meeting of Nato’s parliament, the North Atlantic Council, to discuss how their allies might help in their defence. This came in the wake of the incursion of three MiG-31 supersonic fighter-bombers into their airspace on 19 September. Just before the council met, Copenhagen and Oslo national airports had been closed for several hours after three large military drones were spotted over Denmark, and two over a Norwegian airbase.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen summarised: “I cannot rule out that it is Russia. I can only say that in my view that this is a serious attack on critical Danish infrastructure.”
Russia has denied malicious intent. Their various spokespeople tried to exclude that the drones downed in Poland and the aircraft tracked in Estonian airspace were Russian at all.
At the same time Moscow has made a new overture to Washington – a ruse which has all the cunning of a plan by the weaselly Blackadder. Last week Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, suggested that the Trump-Putin dialogue should be resumed – “but leaving Ukraine out of it”. He opened up the prospect of economic co-operation and investment deals to be worked on by Trump’s best developer-slash-golfing buddy Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, responsible for the Kremlin’s international investment funds.
I doubt that anything Trump did or said at the UN changes this. Moscow knows that the Trump weathervane’s swing towards Kyiv, is likely to swing their way again soon.
The Kremlin strategy is hidden in plain sight. Decisive victory in Ukraine still eludes Putin, despite his employment of overwhelming force, and the expenditure of more than 250,000 of his troops’ lives on the battlefield. He needs a big win by the elections to the Duma and regional councils next September.
He would like to have his version of a Roman triumph in Red Square – to show that Russia’s place as lead European power has been restored, and that whatever the sacrifice it is worth the great Russian people indulging Putin’s vision of martial glory.
This means distracting Trump’s America from supporting Volodymyr Zelensky and Kyiv, and detaching America from its Nato allies. The Europeans then have to bear the load of backing Ukraine. Undermining their resolve is now a main Moscow war aim. Hence the increase in cyber activity, GPS disruption, incursions in airspace by drones and aircraft, and massive propaganda and social media bombardment.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu has accused Moscow of pouring “hundreds of millions of euros” into a campaign to swing the presidential election. “People are intoxicated daily with lies,” she declared. “Hundreds of individuals are paid to provoke disorder, violence and spread fear.”
The latest sweetener for Trump is the offer to extend existing nuclear arms agreements for one year. More importantly, Moscow is offering a new round of talks to renew the Strategic Arms Treaty, or New Start, due to run out next summer.
Time is not on Putin’s side, however, back in the real world of the ground war in Ukraine and a creaking Russian economy. In Ukraine the Russian forces have made some gains, but sustained some big losses, too, with at least 300,000 killed and wounded in action this year alone according to Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. Russia’s key frontline target, the city of Pokrovsk to the north-west of Donetsk, has not been taken after 18 months of assaults. Moreover, Ukrainians are still holding pockets of territory inside Russia.
The main Russian tactic is saturation attacks by drones, missiles and bombers, to smash civilian communities and destroy their economy and morale. But for more than a month now, Ukraine has been hitting back at refineries, storage dumps, and pumping stations with long-range drone and missile attacks.
According to some estimates, Russia has lost up to 20 per cent of its oil refining capacity. That, The Economist reports, equates to around a million barrels a day. Petrol queues have been spotted outside St Petersburg and in the Far East.
Some American commentators have suggested that the Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s refineries are of little long-term consequence. Russia has too much in reserve, especially diesel fuel for the army.
This rather misses a central point. The major crisis is not in petrol supplies and refineries, but the lack of lubricants for heavy machinery, and for emulsifying diesel fuel in freezing temperatures. As winter arrives, and the flow of oil is stopped by the bombing of pipelines and pumping stations, the pipelines are likely to burst.
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There is a further ominous sign that we may be coming to a tipping point in the wars of Putin’s ambitions. The Institute for the Study of War think-tank says that Russia has contracted 292,000 soldiers for a new “reserve” army. It is believed to be undergoing training somewhere well east of the Urals – away from too much hostile drone attention.
Russia already has more than 700,000 soldiers in Ukraine itself, and well over a million supporting the war effort as a whole. What would the new reserve be for? The dominance of drones and artillery in the combat zone make it almost impossible for infantry to take and hold ground. But to take and hold ground you always need infantry. This is why Pokrovsk hasn’t fallen. A new army won’t change this.
There is a growing fear that the new reserve force could be used to punch and probe into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, now Nato allies. But former prime minister Dimitri Medvedev affirms that the trio are Russian; always were, always will be. With a frontline army of over a million, Putin will know that he has to use it or lose it. You cannot let it stand idle, for fear of unrest, mutiny or rebellion.
So far, the response of European Nato has been cautious, and some would say timid. Poland has talked of building a “drone wall”. Britain has joined the Eastern Sentry operation of aircraft patrols. Last week two RAF Typhoons flew combat air patrol for four hours over Poland, and returned safely to Lincolnshire.
But Britain is one of the least prepared of the major allies for the threat of war in the Baltic and the eastern marches of Europe. Despite all the bluster of promised extra spending on defence in the recent defence review, there is no extra money for the next two years, and not much more before 2030.
Currently the RAF has only 17 fully operational Typhoon aircraft. The Royal Navy has only six working Type 23 frigates. Infantry sent for live firing exercises at Otterburn recently had to be sent home because there was no ammunition available. The Army has a mere 17 155mm howitzers.
An old friend at the Royal United Services Institute pithily summed up the prospect of war in Europe, and the UK’s lack of readiness: “It brings us back to grim reality – and we have to face it.”
Robert Fox is a defence expert and war correspondent who has reported from the Falklands, Middle East, Afghanistan and the Balkans
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