On February 24th, Russia launched an invasion into Ukraine following weeks of Russian military buildup along the border between the two states. The Russian military deployed airstrikes across Ukraine, including the capital city Kyiv, and quickly followed with large-scale ground attacks. The conflict has inflicted widespread damage, not only in terms of the lives lost in the conflict, but also in the global economy, as food and energy prices have skyrocketed.
The international community has broadly condemned Russia’s invasion. In addition to vocalized opposition by a multitude of world leaders, heavy sanctions have been imposed on the Russian economy that target Russian central banks, state-owned companies, and a number of individuals with ties to the Russian government. Given the political and economic costs that Russia has incurred, it is worth considering why they would even begin an invasion in the first place. Indeed, the motivations behind wars have been a heavily-studied topic in international politics. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s incentives for the war are both ideological and political, but they have shifted due to how the conflict in Ukraine has unfolded.
The primary incentive expressed by the Russian government at the outset of the conflict was to protect the Russian population in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, the dictator in control of Russia, claimed that this population was the victim of genocide perpetrated by the Ukrainian government. This claim has been widely disproven, but Putin wants to advance this view to advance a long-standing narrative of freeing Russian populations around Eastern Europe. Ukraine has a large population of ethnically Russian people, and Putin has repeatedly conducted Russian foreign policy in a way designed to “free” these individuals. For example, one of the primary motivations behind the annexation of Crimea was to bring the large population of Russians in the area back under the jurisdiction of the Russian government. However, given the widespread disapproval of the annexation, Putin (perhaps correctly) anticipated that he needed a stronger reason to justify a larger-scale invasion.
Another factor that could explain Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is the “rally around the flag” effect. This describes an observation from political scientists that leaders tend to experience a burst in popularity when the state is in a time of crisis or war. Assessing Putin’s popularity can be very difficult given the autocratic nature of Russian politics, but opinion polls found that in late 2021, trust in Putin had dropped to its lowest level in nearly a decade. Putin understands the power that instigating a conflict based around protecting Russian identity can have, as his approval rating rose to almost 80% following the annexation of Crimea. The current invasion of Ukraine has similar support, as even though the exact figure is difficult to pinpoint, almost every poll shows significant support for the invasion of Ukraine. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic had damaged his popularity, Putin may have determined that the best way to restore public support (and thus retain his place in power) was to invade Ukraine.
The third key incentive for Russia involves the nation’s relationship with NATO. Russia has maintained a contentious relationship with NATO, as Russian leadership has repeatedly argued that NATO has violated its promise to refrain from expanding eastward. Ukraine is a major part of this, as Russia finds the idea of a former pillar of the Soviet Union joining an organization originally created to counteract it distasteful. Putin has described Ukraine joining NATO as a “red line”. Importantly, Ukraine has expressed a strong desire to join NATO. Despite Russia’s insistence that Ukraine not join, joining the organization remains an absolute priority for the current Ukrainian regime. As such, one of the strongest incentives for Putin to invade Ukraine was to successfully install a pro-Russian government that would not join NATO. Putin may have sought to install a regime comparable to that of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
Importantly, a key development has shifted the incentive structure for the Russian government: the initial Russian invasion has been rebuffed by Ukrainian forces. Rather than targeting Kyiv, Russia has shifted their focus to the Donbas, a region of Ukraine that had already been partially annexed by Russian forces during the annexation of Crimea. The key takeaway is Russia now has no ability to remove the current Ukrainian government through force. Indeed, the change in target is reflective of Putin rethinking his strategy after the failure of the offensive in Kyiv. As such, the primary goal of the offensive in the Donbas is essentially to save face. From a political standpoint, Russia has already failed to accomplish the initially stated goals, so the value of controlling the Donbas comes from Putin’s ability to use some success there to characterize the entire campaign as a victory. A complete Russian failure would not only damage international perception of Russian power, but would also increase the chance of a domestic challenge against Putin.
The implication of the current shift in strategy is that the manner in which the war in Ukraine unfolds is almost entirely dependent on Putin’s individual incentives. To the extent that the incentives for continuing the war are based on increasing Putin’s popularity, we should carefully consider how each course of action affects him specifically. This manner of analyzing incentives can be extended to future conflicts across the world. Given the massive costs associated with waging war, many of the incentives for doing so are based on the incentives of the people in power. As such, we can use the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a blueprint for identifying future conflicts in the world, which in turn can make global responses more and more effective.