The blitzkrieg imagined by Vladimir Putin did not work. After three weeks of conflict, fighting continues to rage between Russian and Ukrainian forces, and the Blitzkrieg is a distant memory. Russian troops have succeeded in taking up positions in the north, south and east of the country, but still come up against the big cities, in particular kyiv, the capital, but also Kharkiv, Mariupol and Mykolaiv, subjected to infernal shelling from the army. Russian artillery.
Dario Ingiusto / L’Express
The war seems set to last and a central question arises: how will the situation evolve in the weeks or months to come? Five scenarios – which may overlap with each other – are emerging at this stage. The Express takes stock.
- Scenario n°1 – The bogging down of Russian forces
In this scenario, contrary to the Blitzkrieg hoped for by Moscow at the start of the conflict, the Russian army is bogged down in Ukraine for several months. Unable to achieve a decisive victory on the ground, such as the capture of kyiv, it failed to fulfill its initial objectives and faced increased resistance from Ukrainian forces as well as guerrilla operations.
“A stalemate would involve stationing a large Russian occupation force in Ukraine to maintain control of the territories held by Moscow, which would be extremely costly in terms of men and money”, points out General Dominique Trinquand, military expert and former head of the mission. French at the UN. “That would require having a lot of forces available, which Russia no longer has. Moscow would be unable to sustain this situation in the long term.”
The memory of the resistance of the insurgents during the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by the USSR from 1979 to 1989, which resulted in the death of around 15,000 Soviet soldiers, is cause for concern. the Kremlin. Especially since the Ukrainian authorities, led by the charismatic figure of Volodymyr Zelensky, have taken care to train Territorial Defense Forces for several months, that is to say units made up of civilians trained by the army in carry out guerrilla operations. More than 100,000 Ukrainians have already volunteered according to kyiv.
A soldier near a destroyed Russian multiple rocket launcher on March 16 outside Kharkiv, Ukraine
afp.com/Sergey BOBOK
“The losses on the Russian side are already significant [NDLR : les estimations vont de 2000 à 10 000 morts] and could increase even more as the stalemate continues. A fortiori if the Russian forces try to control urban areas, which are generally more deadly for the occupier”, underlines Marie Dumoulin, former diplomat and director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR). The fact of succeeding in resisting the powerful Russian army could then be akin to a form of victory for Ukraine.” Which would undoubtedly have political repercussions in Russia.
- Scenario n°2 – Vladimir Putin overthrown by a putsch
The difficulties of the Russian army in Ukraine added to the economic collapse of Russia due to Western sanctions could weaken the leadership of Vladimir Putin on the domestic scene, even lead to his downfall. “If there are too many political upheavals and Putin alienates an important part of the power networks, especially at the military level, then we cannot exclude a palace revolution”, judge Mathieu Boulègue, researcher specializing in Eurasia at Chatham House, a London think tank.
Despite tougher police repression, protests against the war continue to shake Russia daily. According to the Russian NGO OVD-Info, nearly 15,000 people have been arrested since the start of the conflict on February 24. A movement likely to grow as the number of victims among Russian soldiers climbs and the standard of living of the population drops. Likewise, the oligarchs, massively sanctioned by the West, could eventually seek a way out of the crisis.
Should we therefore hope for the emergence of a leader more open to Western democracies? “If Putin falls, there is absolutely no guarantee that his successor will be more favorable to us”, slice Mathieu Boulègue. “A disappearance of Putin would not necessarily lead to the destruction of Putinism as a system of governance in Russia.”
- Scenario 3 – The diplomatic solution
In this case, the two parties manage to reach an agreement to end the conflict. For the time being, talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials are continuing but have failed to find a compromise. President Volodymyr Zelensky made a strong gesture on Tuesday, March 15, saying he was ready to renounce Ukraine’s membership of NATO. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his part, spoke the next day of a possible agreement around a “statute of neutrality for Ukraine” on the Swedish or Austrian model.
However, kyiv immediately rejected this possibility and is still calling for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from its territory. “The reality of the situation on the ground does not allow Putin to dictate his conditions as he initially wanted to do. This may open the way to a diplomatic solution, but at the same time appear as an admission of weakness of the Russia”, analyzes Marie Dumoulin.
“The great difficulty is to find a compromise allowing each of the two countries to safeguard its interests, as they are far apart”, agrees Tomas Ries, professor of security and strategy at the Higher School of National Defense in Stockholm, Sweden. . “However, if the two parties feel that their forces are too weak to manage to impose themselves on the military ground, then a diplomatic solution could appear as a way out”. A possibility put forward on Tuesday by the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency Oleksiy Arestovich. According to him, an agreement could see the light of day by May, estimating that the resources necessary for the Russian effort of war will be exhausted at this date.
- Scenario 4 – A Russian victory in Ukraine
This scenario favorable to the Kremlin, where Russia would manage to take control of the whole of Ukraine and to impose its conditions on it, even to annex it, seems to be moving away day by day. Faced with fierce resistance from the Ukrainian forces, and undermined by logistical problems such as an exhaustion of its troops, the Russian army begins to reach its limits. “This scenario is less and less credible, the resources to be mobilized would be considerable, if only to take kyiv,” said General Trinquand. “Even in the event of a military victory against the Ukrainian army, the population will refuse to surrender anyway.”
Ukrainians taking part in a military exercise of the territorial defense battalions, outside kyiv on February 19, 2022
Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP
Two paths then open up. “The Kremlin’s frustration could lead it to a headlong rush into violence, with the use of unconventional weapons to take kyiv by all means and decapitate the Ukrainian political leadership, advances Mathieu Boulègue. But it would be a question of ‘suicidal logic on the part of the Kremlin. On Tuesday, NATO warned against any Russian attempt to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Unless, on the contrary, the Russian president is satisfied with a victory by default, by freezing his current territorial gains and maintaining a military presence there. “Putin will be obliged to present a form of victory to his population, even if in our eyes it could look like a defeat compared to his original ambitions”, continues the researcher. “To make the land junction between Crimea and Donbass, if he manages to bring down Mariupol, and then declare victory, could be a way out.” This Wednesday, March 16, the Russian president in any case presented his offensive on Ukraine as a “success”.
- Scenario n°5 – An extension of the conflict with a risk of nuclear escalation
This is the scenario most feared by NATO and Western countries, which, since the start of the conflict, have taken care not to be directly involved in it. Several scenarios can nevertheless lead them there. “It may be the result of an accident: for example, a strike that misses its target in Ukraine and comes crashing down on a neighboring NATO member country, such as Poland. But we cannot exclude the scenario where Russia strikes intentionally, in order to test the solidity of the Atlantic Alliance”, draws up Marie Dumoulin.
On March 13, a Russian strike fell on the Ukrainian base of Yavoriv, only about twenty kilometers from Poland. Accidental strike or not, in the event of a confrontation between a NATO member and Russia, the question would then arise of the Alliance’s involvement in the conflict, whose article 5 provides for the mutual defense of its members.
“Russia would not have the capacity to resist NATO forces in the event of a conventional conflict. However, this position of weakness could increase the risk of Russian nuclear escalation, in order to frighten the Alliance and not lose the war”, emphasizes Tomas Ries. A threat that the Russian president did not hesitate to agitate, by putting his nuclear deterrent forces on alert on February 28. “If the threshold for the use of a nuclear weapon were to be crossed, continues the expert, it would become very difficult to predict where it could stop.” Let’s hope, therefore, that it does not come to that.