Russian military buildup on Ukrainian border emboldens Vladimir Putin, worries Joe Biden

The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia would intervene to prevent ethnic cleansing of Russian speakers by the Ukrainian government, a risk he compared to the ethnic massacres of the 1990s Balkan wars, though there are no signs that such violence is imminent in Ukraine today.

“The situation on the contact line in Ukraine is extremely unstable,” Peskov said. “If military actions begin and a potential repetition of a humanitarian catastrophe similar to Srebrenica arises, not one country in the world will remain on the sidelines. All countries, including Russia, will take measures.”

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Last week, Russia’s chief negotiator in the Ukrainian peace process, Dmitri Kozak, offered another potential justification for intervention: to protect people with dual Ukrainian and Russian citizenship. Since 2019, Russia has been granting citizenship to residents of the two separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine, the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.

Russian officials have said Ukraine, not Russia, initiated the escalation. The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, on Friday (Saturday AEDT) blamed Ukraine for mustering forces near the contact line and said Kiev “lives with an illusion of a possible forceful settlement” of the conflict.

As talk of war has become louder, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Putin this week to demand that forces pull back from the border. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said that the Biden administration is “increasingly concerned” by the movements.

“Russia now has more troops on the border with Ukraine than at any time since 2014,” Psaki said on Thursday (FridayAEDT). “These are all deeply concerning signs.”

Before the tanks started rolling, Russia had been telegraphing a possible response to the Biden administration’s promise of a tougher line with Moscow. The Biden administration had said it would pursue cyberoperations and sanctions to retaliate for Russian cyberattacks and election meddling.

Russia, some analysts say, is now essentially daring the United States to follow through while its tanks are on the Ukrainian border.

The pace of military movements picked up in March, according to the Conflict Intelligence Team, a group of Russian military bloggers who analysed images and videos posted online by Russians who watched the columns go by. Their report was published in the Insider, a Russian investigative news site.

The Russian airwaves, too, have been chockablock with reports of a possible resumption of war in eastern Ukraine.

“Bad news from Ukraine,” commentator Dmitry Kiselyov said in opening his Sunday talk show this week on state Channel 1. “The talk in Ukraine is increasingly about war.”

Michael Kofman, a senior researcher at CNA, an analytical organisation based in Arlington, Virginia, said the Russian buildup seems targeted more at shifting Ukraine’s stance in settlement talks than countering US sanctions.

“Saber-rattling is an oversimplification,” he said. “It is coercive diplomacy with a purpose,” though for now that purpose is unstated and left open to interpretation by Ukraine and Western governments. “That is the situation we are in.”