Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has again insisted that Russia does not currently have enough troops in place to mount a further invasion of Ukraine, a day after Boris Johnson travelled to Kyiv and said there was a “clear and present danger” of an imminent military campaign.
Even taken together, the troops currently massed on Ukraine’s border with Russia, on the annexed Crimea peninsula and in neighbouring Belarus, are “insufficient for a large-scale military operation”, said Kuleba in a briefing for foreign journalists on Wednesday.
His words once again highlighted a notable difference between the rhetoric coming out of London and Washington, where officials say Putin could launch an attack imminently, and the government in Kyiv.
On Wednesday, Kuleba tried to smooth over that difference. “The tone of voice of our messages may sound different but the actual content is the same. Everything is possible and we should be preparing for every possible scenario,” he said.
He insisted Ukraine, which has been fighting a war with Russia-backed forces in the east of the country for the past eight years, knew very well that Moscow could attempt a further incursion.
Also on Wednesday, the White House said it would stop referring to a Russian attack as imminent after Ukrainian complaints. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said using the word sent an “unintended message”.
It comes after a period of mutual frustration between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s team and US officials, with those in Kyiv repeatedly saying Washington is exaggerating the imminence of the threat.
Much of any analysis of the current threat hinges on guesses about Putin’s psychological state and innermost thoughts. Is he only bluffing to win concessions, or does he really plan to launch an attack?
Trying to answer that question, US and Ukrainian officials have weighed all the evidence and come up with the same answer: maybe.
But Washington and Kyiv have chosen to accent that “maybe” in different ways.
For the US, the prospect of possible conflict has been a chance to rally reluctant allies, particularly France and Germany, to make genuine commitments to Ukraine’s security.
“Within the US government, there is a tendency to be a little bit coming down on the side of more alarm,” said Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine who was part of a delegation of former US ambassadors and military generals that travelled to Kyiv earlier this week.
“The US is trying to martial allies and partners in Europe to do what they can to indicate to the Kremlin that the cost of an attack on Ukraine will be very significant … the goal here is to maximise pressure on the Kremlin,” said Pifer, speaking at a roundtable event in Kyiv.
For Zelenskiy’s team, long-requested supplies of defensive weapons from Britain, the US and other countries are very welcome, as are numerous high-level visits to Kyiv and declarations of support. But the president fears that the repeated talk of an imminent war risks scaring off investors and adding to a sense of panic that will push the struggling Ukrainian economy to breaking point.
“The weapons are very helpful, but we can’t feed weapons to our pensioners. If everyone thinks there will be war tomorrow, the economy will be in real trouble,” said a high-ranking government official.
One factor which has particularly irked the Ukrainians is the decision by the US and Britain to remove some non-essential staff and dependents from their embassies and advise their citizens to leave the country.
Images of the chaotic evacuation of Kabul after the city fell to the Taliban were lurking in the minds of decision makers as they pulled out staff, said a diplomatic source. But Kyiv is not Kabul, and Ukrainians feel the decision has helped reinforce an image of Ukraine as a country on the brink of collapse.
At a press conference last Friday, Zelenskiy criticised that decision, and also said he judged the threat from Russia to be no higher than during a previous troop buildup in spring last year.
“We don’t have any misunderstandings with President Biden. I just deeply understand what’s happening in my country, just as he does with the US,” he said.
London and Washington insist there is a heightened risk now, and have even publicised specific intelligence they say shows Putin may be plotting either a coup, or a full-scale invasion.
In the most striking public disagreement, US defence officials briefed CNN and Reuters last weekend that Russia had moved supplies of blood close to the border, seen as a sign of imminent military action. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, categorically denied the report. “The purpose of such information is to spread panic and fear in our society,” she said.
Yuriy Vitrenko, the CEO of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state gas company, said in an interview on Wednesday that while the risks were very real, making statements that could increase panic was extremely dangerous.
“If we tell everybody stop working, go and dig some trenches, it may help if the invasion is tomorrow, but it will have a detrimental effect on the economy, and if there is no invasion tomorrow, then again in a couple of months we feel these very dire consequences for the economy,” said Vitrenko.
This, he said, would be to give Putin just what he wants to intervene: “As soon as we have some economic problems, it increases the risk of social unrest, and social unrest is exactly the pretext Putin is looking for.”
