Russian roulette: is Moscow’s bluff backfiring?

A bluff only works if you can carry it off convincingly. The massing of some 130,000 Russian soldiers on Ukraine’s borders has led to London and Washington declaring that a full-scale invasion is imminent, but it could still be a feint. The Russians know everything they do can be seen by satellite.

On the phone from Kiev, Colonel General Ihor Smeshko says he is not inclined to read too much into the Russian army’s logistics. He was head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service and later a candidate for president. ‘From the military point of view, Russian Federation has prepared everything needed to start the war,’ he said, but he still did not want to believe that the ‘tsar’ in the Kremlin had committed to the ‘full craziness’ of an invasion. ‘It would be the beginning of the end of Russian Federation.’

It may seem odd to talk about Russia collapsing when it’s the Ukrainians digging trenches, but Vladimir Putin’s regime faces two dangers. The first is economic sanctions. The second is casualties and the reaction if coffins start to arrive back from Ukraine. The Ukrainians are prepared to fight and have anti-tank weapons from the US and Britain. Russian convoys would be vulnerable to ambush. This might not be like the quick and relatively bloodless Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

One estimate is that Putin would need half a million troops if he were serious about invading Ukraine. So he might try something smaller and ambiguous. I have seen the Russian way of war on two occasions — in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 and Chechnya in 1999 — and both involved a measure of deception. The real fighting is also often done by mercenaries, who were once known as contractniki, or contract soldiers.

Today, there is the Wagner Group, the private army the Kremlin has used in Syria.