Crimea

In a “significant” military buildup over the past 18 months, Russia has increased its troops, aircraft, and weapons in Crimea and improved its Soviet bases and S-400 anti-aircraft systems (13). One U.S. official described Defense One’s satellite imagery analysis of the region “a deliberate and systematic buildup of [Russian] forces on the peninsula” (1).

The conflict in Ukraine is very important to American, NATO, and Russian security. Russia has been testing its limits by annexing Crimea in 2014 and then by participating in the Ukrainian conflict. With sanctions affecting the Russian economy, Russia is using different tools to circumnavigate the sanctions by using China. With Russian forces in Syria fighting extremists, and with Russian involvement in Ukraine, Russia is able to use these conflicts as leverage against the United States.

Mr. Putin would casually deny it, but Russia has fashioned the ongoing civil conflict in Eastern Ukraine in a manner that suits the Kremlin’s goals. The opening actions of the rebellion were pulled off without too many snags and managed to seize significant political and economic sites throughout the region, ranging from police stations to major railroad junctions. A growing amount of evidence suggests that these seemingly homegrown insurrections were originally led and coordinated by Russian operatives disguised as locals. Videos and eyewitness accounts show large convoys of vehicles packed with armed, uniformed men (many belonging to the Vostok Battalion, of Chechen War notoriety) streaming into Ukraine from over the Russian border. While this isn’t exactly hard evidence of the Kremlin’s direct involvement, it does speak volumes about what entities are fueling the current strife. Despite these occurrences, Putin does not seem interested in invading and annexing the eastern provinces of Ukraine in the same way that he did Crimea. This article discusses why Moscow does not want to absorb Eastern Ukraine, as well as what Russia’s true intensions are.