The second stage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is underway. The scope of the war now appears to be establishing full control over Donbas and southern Ukraine. If successful, this would mean Russian occupation of approximately one-third of Ukraine, cutting the country off from its Black Sea ports, including Odesa.
If fully realised, these objectives also raise the deeply worrying prospect of a Russian move on Moldova and its break-away region of Transnistria. Stage two of Putin’s war could thus very well imply a more serious escalation.
Russia’s foreign policy strategy towards its neighbours is intimately linked with Vladimir Putin’s longstanding aspiration to turn Russia into a great power akin to the Soviet Union, whose demise he has lamented as a geopolitical catastrophe. Short of recreating the Soviet Union, Russia needs friendly political regimes in neighbouring countries, or at least regimes it can influence and prevent from sliding into the western orbit of the EU and Nato.
