Update: Will Russia invade Ukraine, again?
It doesn’t look good and I am at 75% probability for an invasion.
Three reasons why I am up to 75% probability for military action involving ground troops (including “officially” moving Russian troops to de-facto Russian-controlled Donbas) happening before April 1st.
General chatter coming out of Washington and London is increasingly alarming. Telling their citizens to leave immediately, preparing to evacuate embassies, others like Israel also evacuating families of diplomats, and the reports based on “leaks” coming from White House suggesting an attack is imminent are not particularly reassuring. There might be some PR/strategic reasons behind it (e.g. making it hard for Putin to authorize a false-flag attack to justify his invasion etc.) but I do not think that is the main reason. Those guys are really concerned that a decision is already made by Putin and that decision is invasion. There is information asymmetry here and although on the aggregate privileged/confidential information do not necessarily increase forecasting accuracy, I am not going to discount clear signals that are backed by a vast intelligence apparatus, especially regarding things that may happen within few weeks.
The lackluster results of the diplomatic efforts in the past week or so, from visits by Macron and Truss to the talks in Berlin that failed to produce even a joint statement after 9 hours. Overall demeanor of Putin and Lavrov, the petty behaviors (keeping Macron waiting, the long table because he refused Russian COVID-19 test, the way Lavrov talked/acted in the presser after talks with Truss etc.), and the lack of any indication that Kremlin is ready to modify its maximalist demands suggests to me that Russians are not particularly convinced that they will be able to get what they want without demonstrating that they are willing to use force.
Troops and equipment continue to flow to the border and seems like they are also moving to places where they are likely to be the final staging areas.
None of these are good signs. The dynamics I discussed last time regarding what Putin wants and why he cannot really climb down the escalation ladder without significant concessions on his two primary goals didn’t change.
I still think Putin is hoping/planning to use force as a demonstration to coerce Ukraine and the West to make real concessions rather than conquer/occupy/hold territory but once the missiles start flying its a different ballgame and as Helmuth von Moltke said, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.