Ive been asked to write this up, so heads up, folks: You should abstain from planning travel from anywhere in the world to anywhere in Eastern Europe (see below) between about 12 August and whenever the situation clears up (which can be anywhere from a couple of weeks to months). And if you are traveling from Russia to anywhere, you should be prepared for a long stay. Why? The land war between Ukraine and Russia is about to get really hot. The Ukrainian military is about to capture whats remaining of the Donetsk Peoples Republic, along with the Republics leadership. Russia cannot afford this. Unless the takeover is done quickly and with minimum casualties, the answer to Ukraines advance will be a full-out Russian invasion, perhaps under the guise of peacekeeping forces. A full-out land and air war in Europe sounds crazy to even discuss, but then had anyone in say January of 2014 told any one of us that (a) there would be a change of borders within Europe in March, (b) a limited war-for-territory with tanks, attack jets, and surface-to-air missiles would be underway by June, and (c) said war would lead to the downing of a 777 in July, wed think she were crazy, too. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Keep reading to find out why this means its prudent to not make travel plans even though the war may not be particularly near where you personally want to go. But first, here are the (1) Objective indications: (a) The size of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border roughly doubled over the past two weeks; there are now 25k along the borders, but 40k if you include troops in the Crimea, and 65–70k if you include battle-ready units that can be brought in within 24 hours from elsewhere in Russia. The number of the troops on the border is not exactly known and is possibly quite a bit more than 25k; many have been photographed wearing uniforms with peacekeeping insignia, there are also such on their vehicles. Almost all of these troops are professional military, not conscripts. Some of them are positioned in Belarus, from where their only logical destination is Kiev and not the Peoples Republics. Its extremely unlikely Russia would want to occupy and hold Kiev, but a quick regime change is quite possible given some limited support from aviation and ground forces. An article in Foreign Policy today rightly noted that if the goal was to only scare the opponent and not to invade, the accumulation of troops would be visible and not hidden—which is not the case. These are there for the real thing. There was indeed a prior buildup of about the same size which peaked in late April, then all but dissolved, without the go-command. That was when it seemed that Ukraine wouldnt be able to muster a reply to the Peoples Republics expansion. Not the case now. Many analysts and politicians are stating that an invasion is all but imminent. You can find many of their articles readily, I can put some in the comments; some good analysis in the NY Times and also comments by FM Sikorski of Poland. (b) As of the moment of this writing, Donetsk Peoples Republic (DNR) is cut off from supplies and their tanks are almost out of diesel. Territory of the DNR is down to about a dozen cities, most importantly Donetsk itself. A push is underway to liberate some of them as I write this. The progress of the Ukrainian military has been tremendous until two weeks ago, then stalled with some setbacks, but indications are that a final push is either imminent or is already underway. The Luhansk Peoples Republic (LNR) is a tougher nut to crack because of the open borders between it and Russia, so it can exist for a while, but its not nearly as valuable to Ukraine as is Donetsk. If Ukraine were to seize Donetsk and President Poroshenko were to immediately make a deal with the remaining separatists, preserving the LNR in some shape, it may well be a satisfactory outcome for most citizens of Ukraine; Putin then would get a quarter of Voroshilovgradsky Oblast in exchange for a 2% permanent cut in Russian GDP, collapse of the Russian credit system, gravely uncertain business climate for years to come, and loss of Ukraine as a customer for natural gas and as a source of the majority of components for Russias only other export, armaments. The costs imposed on Russia are already high. Without Donetsk, its not a win for Ukraine; losing Donetsk is unacceptable for Putin. (c) Two United Nations Security Council meeting were held this week in regards to Ukraine. At both, Russia tested waters for a humanitarian mission to Ukraine. Nobody bought it, not even China. On 08 August, a column of armed peacekeepers was allegely prepared to enter Ukraine, according to Poroshenko, and was turned back. Where?, how?—these details are not yet known, nor is there independent confirmation of this with photos or videos. (d) Deescalation has not been chosen by Putin at any time in this conflict. The next step for escalation is invasion. (e) Ukraine is in several ways a first-rate military opponent and Russian military may be itching to prove itself, both to the Russian public and as future deterrence to NATO countries. (2) Timeframe indications: (a) Russia announced a call-up of reservists for late August. The reservists will only be useful AFTER the invasion is begun by professionals, and perhaps only in case things dont go exactly as planned. So, this suggests the invasion would begin sometime between now and say 20 August. (b) Putin was going to address the nation on 07 August at 1830 MSK, but changed his mind. (c) On 08 August, Ukraines Cabinet of Ministers proposed a law to the Rada (Parliament) that would give it and President Poroshenko the right to select and impose sanctions on Russia. One of the kinds of sanctions specifically mentioned is cessation of gas transit rights from Russia to the rest of Europe through Ukraine. The Rada votes on the law on Tuesday 12 August. Should the law pass (almost guaranteed) and the Cabinet, include gas transit in the list of sanctions (quite possible but not certain), the loss of gas revenue from Europe would finish Gazprom off within a few weeks. (European customers are obligated to pay for a while no matter that they doesnt get the gas, but they can most likely quickly argue in court that the sanctions are a security matter, and stop the payments.) If Ukraine cuts off the gas, it will be equivalent to a declaration of economic war, to which the response most likely will be real war. (Yes it happened twice before and without war, but then the situation was not nearly as dire.) (d) Peacekeepers are already coming, see above. Now, for the travel part. Heres where it gets interesting: Ukraine is unlike Russias recent military opponents in that it has close-to-first-rate air defenses. It used to have 29 S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries; not all of them are operational, but a single battery can engage dozens of air targets at a time. Ukraine also has dozens of operational Buks. Russia lost eight aircraft to Georgia in 2008; Georgia only had 9 Buk launchers (not all a/c were lost to Buks, some were to shoulder-fired missiles and some to friendly fire). Russia is certain to suffer heavy losses if it tries to meaningfully support its ground forces with air power, its not like the Americans coming in against some third-world air defense and bombing their way through. Conversely, Ukrainian airfields are all certain to be destroyed by Russian ballistic missiles in the first hours of the war, but the Ukrainian Buks are highly portable and the S-300 is a portable system. Ukrainian aircraft, once in the air and in range, are also certain to be quickly destroyed by Russias S-300 and S-400. What this means is that AIRSPACE OVER A LARGE PART OF EUROPE WILL BE CLOSED WITHIN MINUTES OF THE START OF THE INVASION and it will not reopen until the air defenses of Ukraine are gone, or a peace treaty ( = capitulation of Ukraine) is signed. And they wont be gone quickly. Its not straightforward to hit a SAM battery with a ballistic missile, and the reasons why its hard to do with aircraft are in the linked article. The ranges of the S-300 and the S-400 are 250 km and 400 km, respectively. After Malaysian 17, it will be sheer recklessness to not close the airspace within possible SAM range of anywhere inside the territory of the combatant nations, plus a generous margin. I think that the closure will cover everywhere east of roughly Oslo-to-Trieste line, and include all of Sweden and all of Southern Europe. It is roughly 700 km from the westernmost point of Ukraine, near which some of their S-300s may be based, to the Oslo-to-Trieste line. This includes Stockholm, Helsinki, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Vienna, Belgrade, Athens, and Istanbul, to name a few places. Again, it perhaps wouldnt be necessary to go this wide, but after MAS 017 there will be a considerably higher degree of caution. What else will there be? MAJOR INTERRUPTIONS TO THE BANKING SYSTEM. The impulse of the U.S. will be to cut Russia wholesale out of SWIFT. This is a major hit and may provoke a military response up to nuclear escalation, but maybe they already did the analysis and decided it is still a go. Russia, in response, is at least guaranteed to unleash a cyberattack on as many Western financial institutions as it has hackers and servers for. Even without the SWIFT cutoff, there will be consequences; Western banks are likely to block Russia- and Ukraine-related transactions as a precaution, something is guaranteed to break, affecting things that werent meant to be affected, and there will be dark ATM screens and closed branches. The Euro will be sharply down to below a dollar, the currencies of small European nations not tied to the Euro will quite likely collapse. And finally, in case Ukraine does not capitulate quickly and finds friends, possible paths of escalation may be up to nuclear. This is why Russia continues to push for escalation---there is not a meaningful way for it to lose militarily. Whether Putin perceives all other kinds of losses as meaningful is an open question; so far the answer has been no. Scary? Hey—you heard it here first. If you want to be even more sure, get your potassium iodide now before its too late, and check that stash of MREs in the basement. Finally, if you plan on travelling from Russia to someplace, not necessarily the West: BRING CASH and BRING DOCUMENTS such as birth certificate and university diploma. You can be stuck for a long time for a number of reasons, not all of which are outlined above. If you have to interact with the immigration authorities of wherever you are stranded (for whatever reason), the more documents you have to demonstrate who you are, the better. This is practical advice without any advocacy for anything. I very much hope to be wrong.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:33:49 +0000
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