Still, whatever the level of support for unity, it is clear that Russia cannot replicate the outcome in Crimea in the east. According to Professor Grigory Perepelytsa, the director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Kiev, if Russia invades, Ukrainian forces are too weak to fight; but Russia might well be faced with spontaneous partisan resistance. In his view, Russia might invade anyway. Putin, he and many others believe, has set himself the task of reversing what he regards as the geopolitical disaster of the end of the USSR. When I asked if that meant that Russian troops might even come as far as Kiev, he said, “Yes, that is the final goal.”
Clearly there are other possibilities. One is that Putin is manipulating eastern anger because he wants to destabilize Ukraine in order to dominate, divide, and rule. If martial law is declared in all or part of the country, then it will be difficult to hold an election on May 25. Putin will then continue to argue that the authorities in Kiev are illegitimate. He will also count on the covert military agents, the so-called “little green men,” he has almost certainly sent to direct the locals. They have no insignia and thus might, as the local joke goes, have just landed from Mars. On April 22, Vice President Biden said, “We call on Russia to stop supporting men hiding behind masks in unmarked uniforms, sowing unrest in eastern Ukraine.”
Putin may not be planning a full-scale occupation but instead trying to force the federalization of Ukraine. If that takes place, he won’t have the huge expense of absorbing the region. He will not risk a major war or really crippling sanctions from the West. Still, Russia would call the shots in the east of the country. The local oligarchs, who unlike in Russia have real political power, could be brought under control—and one day in the future if it were convenient, it might be possible to break off a now growing People’s Republic of Donetsk from Ukraine. If such a “republic” emerges, the question will be how far it can extend its power.
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