The war many predicted and have long feared has begun. In the early morning hours of Thursday, February 24 2022, the Russian military began its assault across the entirety of its neighbor, Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for all Ukrainians to resist the invasion and has beseeched the West to sanction Russia and provide aid to the Ukrainian armed forces. None of these requests will make much material difference in the current military operation against Ukraine. Russian, Belarusian, and separatist forces are on the move across all of Ukraine and the outcome will be decided by the forces already available. It seems likely that the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, as well as the major cities of Kharkov and Mariupol, will fall in the coming days. Let’s look at some possible resulting events from what we’re seeing right now.
Ukrainian resistance effectively ends
The Russian advance into and across Ukraine is fast, lethal, and disorienting. This is a more effective version of what the United States attempted to do in Iraq in 2003. Where the US assault on Iraq was designed to have the smallest footprint possible and afflict the civilian population in the smallest way possible, the Russian attack appears designed to overwhelm with numbers. Air and missile attacks are being launched against air defense systems, command and control nodes, and supply depots. An airborne assault on an airport near Kyiv is a probable airhead for heavier follow-on forces to attack the capital. Rumors of amphibious assaults along the Black Sea coast are tying down Ukrainian army units while other Russian forces advance out of Crimea, Belgorod, Belarus, and the occupied eastern provinces. The numerical advantage Russia enjoys is overwhelming and that’s the point: to make resistance appear futile.
In light of these material and military disadvantages, the government of Ukraine could travel west to Lvov or even out of the country if remaining in Ukraine is no longer safe. It's hard to imagine the standing Ukrainian armed forces holding on for much longer after that. If the government of President Zelenskyy goes into exile in Europe, the impetus for organized resistance might collapse. If this happens, the Russians will undoubtedly seize the whole of Ukraine and install some kind of puppet regime. Guerilla fighting and an insurgency might form but the country will effectively belong to Moscow.
Ukrainian resistance halts Russian advances
The Russian advances thus far have not been bloodless. Social media is full of images of burning Russian vehicles and shot down aircraft. It is possible that some level of overreach has happened here and the Russians will not be able to break the morale of the Ukrainian armed forces and the government and people of Ukraine will stay resolute. In this event, Putin would declare victory by remaining in control of the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk and perhaps any other captured territories on the Crimean and Belarusian borders. This is quite dangerous as Putin would be seen to have lost what he has defined as an existential conflict. He would have to do something, somewhere, to retain the illusion of strength.
But this is the least likely outcome of recent events. The Ukrainians lack the manpower and military strength to halt or even slow the Russian advance for very long. There is no Western military force coming to save the Ukrainians. They will enjoy small, local victories but ultimately the kinetic strength of the Russian assault will prove too much. An insurgency forming after conventional Ukrainian military operations have failed is possible but the Ukrainian military doesn’t stand a chance against Russia on its own.
Russia engages in cyberattacks across the West
The European and American response to the full scale invasion of Ukraine has been economic sanctions on Russia and its ruling class. The Russians have no correlating economic weapon against the West; the Russian economy is based largely on the export of energy. The real response from Russia will come in the form of cyberattacks on western infrastructure. This has the benefit of being a way to hurt your adversary while also claiming it's not a physical attack meriting a military response. The West has its own offensive cyberwarfare capabilities that will be used to strike back and this could result in an ever escalating virtual tit for tat.
But we are entering a time when the line between conventional military attack and cyberattack is being blurred. If a Russian attack on the American electrical system causes power outages in hospitals and Americans die from lack of acute medical care, is there a qualitative difference that it wasn’t a military strike per se? If a Russian cyberattack wipes out billions of dollars in financial transactions and people can’t access money for food or gas, how would the American government respond? These kinds of blurring of lines can easily escalate events up the response ladder. No American or European leader can sit quietly for long if a foreign attack shuts down key infrastructure.
War spreads from Ukraine to NATO countries nearby
In the most dangerous possible outcome, there exists the potential that the fighting spreads beyond Ukraine’s borders. Right now, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Ukrainians are on the move to the west away from the Russian attack. Poland, Hungary, and Romania have prepared contingencies for a flood of refugees to cross their borders. American and allied NATO troops are on the ground to assist. It’s very easy to imagine that fleeing Ukrainian civilians and military forces draw fire across the border into the territory of a NATO country. If Russian military action targets a NATO member, that country is well within its rights to call for all the other NATO countries to respond.
This event could occur by accident with an overzealous Russian commander on the ground or it could be a premeditated action from the Kremlin to test NATO resolve. Russian and NATO aircraft, ships, and personnel will be in very close proximity as this war unfolds in and around Ukraine; it wouldn’t take very much for a plane to be shot down, a ship to be fired upon, or for a squad of soldiers to respond to provocations. This happens all the time. In Syria, Russian and American forces engaged in a heavy firefight. Turkish forces shot down a Russian fighter jet. Russian and American planes and ships routinely test each other in the skies and on the sea. Luckily, these events have not resulted in an escalatory spiral but they easily could. While the war in Ukraine is devastating in its human cost and economic damage, military action between Russia and NATO would be incalculably bad for the entire world.
We have entered into the most dangerous period in European history since 1945. The risk of escalating conflict between major powers is very high. This will affect American and European populations. For sure, Ukraine is over as an independent country. What will become of the inevitable refugees? How will Russia choose to rule the territory it conquers? What will be the NATO response in eastern Europe? How will Russia respond to Western efforts to slow its attack in Ukraine? All these questions will need to be answered in the coming days to understand how this unfolding crisis will evolve.