Enemy at the Gates: Russia shows muscle on the border of Ukraine

UKRAINE - In Brief 08 Apr 2021 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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Over the recent weeks we have seen regular reports about the growing number of Russian troops on the border of Ukraine. That was a logical and quite predictable development after Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer” and after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ambushed pro-Russian forces in Ukraine and imposed sanctions against Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Putin. For us it was a shock in 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea and started open military intervention in Donbas. Since then Ukrainians have already gotten used to the permanent risk of a potential renewal of Russian military aggression. The public took the news about the growing concentration of Russian troops calmly. A new lockdown, which started April 5th , is grabbing more attention from Ukrainians than the maneuvers of the Russian army. The general consensus is that we should expect intensified action in Eastern Donbas (an escalation has already started). At the same time, the current maneuvers are seen as a show of muscle rather than a preparation for a real intervention into the mainland of Ukraine. Still we keep in mind that Moscow is unpredictable and counter-logical in its actions (although some in-house logic is present, for sure). Against this backdrop the Ukrainian military is doing its job to prepare for potential any unpredictability from Russians, while all other Ukrainians do not really care about the developments at the border. If we try to allocate some probabilities for potential scenarios, I would give roughly 45% probability that Kremlin starts a large-scale military operation against Ukraine and 55% that intensified fights will be limited by the area of mil...