As Ukraine teeters, will Putin nudge it back into war?

The latest alleged movement of soldiers, rocket launchers, tanks and missiles from Russia into rebel-held eastern Ukraine would fit a familiar pattern in the country's separatist crisis, but for a few worrisome details.

The unmarked convoys spotted near the Russian-backed breakaway "republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk last week appear to contain advanced weapon systems and radar equipment never before seen in the months-long conflict — supplies some analysts speculate could be used to launch a lightning offensive by the separatists. And whereas past alleged incursions near the porous Russia-Ukraine border have occurred while fighting has raged, the rebels are currently supposed to be observing a cease-fire with Ukrainian forces that Moscow helped broker, even if it has been largely ignored by both sides.

Though Russia has dismissed the latest charges as "hot air," Western powers have little patience for such denials. There's wide agreement among analysts that Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to destabilize his southwestern neighbor, where the newly elected government in Kiev is desperately trying to foster closer ties with NATO and the European Union.

But the timing and nature of these latest reinforcements has left diplomats scrambling to decipher just how far Putin might be willing to go to achieve that end. 

Writing in The New Republic, Julia Ioffe and Linda Kinstler said last week’s military buildup has echoes of Russia's annexation of Crimea in March. There, Putin denied that a sudden incursion of unmarked troops into the peninsula had anything to do with Moscow until after a public referendum voted in favor of secession. A similar plot could be in store for the largely Russian-speaking Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, Ioffe and Kinstler suggested. Another theory holds that Russia is arming its rebel allies for an even deeper offensive aimed at opening up a land bridge from the separatist east to isolated Crimea, which would facilitate the transport of supplies to sustain Russia’s newest citizens.

But others say that despite Putin’s insistence on referring to the Donbass region as Novorossiya — New Russia — a land grab in eastern Ukraine would actually run counter to Russia’s objectives. They note that if Moscow were to slice off the largest pro-Russian sector of Ukraine, it would leave behind a state — albeit a smaller, weaker one — that is almost entirely pro-Western.

“I see Donbass as very different from Crimea,” said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. The peoples’ republics “have been important for Putin as a foot in the door in his policy of guaranteeing Russian interests in Ukraine as a whole, such as neutrality between NATO and Russia. Annexation serves no useful Russian interest at this point.”

Most analysts have ruled out that Putin would ever launch a formal invasion of separatist-held Ukraine, even though he has said that step could be justified on humanitarian grounds and maintains tens of thousands of regular Russian soldiers just across the border. Recent polling indicates that Russians generally approve of their president’s confrontation with the West over Ukraine and of the “volunteer” Russian military units that Moscow says are fighting on behalf of their separatist brethren. But a Levada Tsenter poll found that 68 percent of Russians were opposed to sending troops into Ukraine, and there is rising concern over the toll Western sanctions are taking on the Russian economy.

For their part, Ukraine’s leaders have ratcheted up the anti-Russia rhetoric over the past week. At a press conference on Friday, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk commented that that his government’s “No. 1 task” at present was to build an army that is “capable of stopping aggression from Russia.” The next day, President Petro Poroshenko cut off all state services in the rebel-held east, including hospitals and schools, and ordered the evacuation of all government employees.

Meanwhile, at the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, Kiev’s Western backers ganged up on Putin — who left the conference early — over his alleged meddling in Ukraine. U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron both warned Ukraine was headed toward a frozen conflict,” similar to the situations in the Russian-backed breakaway regions of Georgia and Moldova, and threatened further sanctions if Russia did not withdraw its “invading” forces.

But for all their grandstanding, the U.S. and its NATO allies remain unlikely to confront Russia militarily in Ukraine, a country of limited geopolitical importance to the West that has been within Russia’s sphere of influence since the early 18th century. As Ukraine’s economy teeters on the brink of disaster and Ukrainians grow insecure about continued arms deliveries to the rebels, some Western European officials are concerned that is Kiev, not Moscow, that may be inclined to pronounce the shaky cease-fire dead and relaunch a “counterterrorism” operation out of desperation.

In that context, Putin could simply be conveying a warning. “I think this is basically about deterrence and preparation for defense,” said Trenin. “Russia is sending a message to the West that it should under no circumstances create an impression in Kiev that it would condone a Ukrainian push against Donetsk and Luhansk. Should there be a large-scale war in Ukraine, it may escalate and affect the West.”

In a commentary for the Atlantic Council, analyst Adrian Karatnycky presented a more cynical theory, suggesting that Putin actually had no interest in settling for a frozen conflict. He said Russia was trying to build the Donbass into a “highly militarized proto-state, a mini-Sparta, wielding an army of covert Russian troops.”

“The new militarized statelet in Donbass is far more dangerous — an engine for a permanent war against the fragile Ukrainian democracy that aims to ruin its economy and block its decision to seek a gradual integration into the European community,” Karatnycky wrote, calling on the West to start supplying the Ukrainian military with the weapons it needs to defend against this potential “campaign of attrition."

Meanwhile, the European monitoring body that helped broker the crumbling cease-fire, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has made a broad humanitarian appeal for both sides to exercise restraint. From Kiev, OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw noted that much of eastern Ukraine’s infrastructure is bombed out, power cuts are common and food and gas are in short supply as the coldest months of the year fast approach. The conflict has taken over 4,000 lives and produced at least 400,000 internally displaced people and refugees — most of whom have been taken in by Russia.

The OSCE continues to push for the elusive political resolution, which most assume would guarantee autonomy for the separatist east while keeping Ukraine intact. But as shelling grows more frequent in the east and heavier weapons arrive, said Bociurkiw, “We really do feel this is heading toward humanitarian disaster.”