After examining Russia’s war with Georgia and the actions against Ukraine in Crimea and Donbas it is apparent that the focus on the military aspect of the operations has marginalized the importance of the long term deliberate political warfare that Russia waged against both countries. For these actions to be considered warfare, it must be concluded that Russia held strategic goals of forcing both countries to accept Russia’s will. Russia’s methodology for subverting Georgian and Ukrainian sovereignty included political coercion, economic warfare, information warfare, and select applications of violence all aimed at undermining governance, fracturing the territorial integrity of both states, and paving the way for the introduction of Russian armed forces to dynamically change the status quo in Russia’s favor. Both Georgia and Ukraine were subject to different hybrid combinations of political and military warfare for years prior to the commonly accepted period of “war.”
Putin’s strategic themes of strengthening his domestic power, dominating the near abroad, and promoting Russian strength while frustrating the West, were all supported to some degree during the hybrid campaigns in Georgia and Ukraine. Following the color revolutions in the early 2000s, Russia risked losing both Georgia and Ukraine to blossoming democratic movements and deepening ties with the EU and NATO. Not only did these movements threaten Russia’s sense of entitled interest in the affairs of the former Soviet states, but they represented the spread of Western ideology closer to Moscow, which the increasingly revanchist Russians interpret as a deliberate, Western plot to undermine Russia’s governing system. To derail Georgian and Ukrainian efforts
to pull away from Russia’s orbit, the Russians made multiple efforts to take control of the political systems in both countries through manufactured crisis, economic coercion, selective violence and political manipulation, before the ultimate use of overt force to consolidate Moscow’s objectives.
In Georgia, Russia promoted the separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, providing both groups with heavy weapons and Russian officers to serve in leadership roles, while systematically removing any local leaders who were inclined to mend the relationship with Tbilisi. Moscow extended Russian citizenship to Abkhaz and Ossetian Georgians through the issuance of Russian passports, effectively creating a population of ‘Russians’ abroad to whom Moscow would be inclined to extend protection in the event they were to be threatened. Russia then used the ensuing acts of violence, both the interethnic and direct military confrontations, enabled by the equipment Russia provided and directed by Russian officers, to manufacture a ‘threat’ and justify the presence of large garrisons of Russian “peacekeepers” in Georgian territory. Moscow made its strategic objectives clear in 2004 when they offered to help support the Georgian President put down a pro-democracy uprising in exchange for Moscow’s future ability to appoint the Georgian Ministers of Defense, Interior, and Security, which would have effectively relinquished Georgia’s most powerful political offices to a foreign state. When the Georgian president refused Moscow’s offer, Russia doubled its efforts to undermine Georgia’s control over its territory.
In Ukraine, Russia already maintained a large military presence at the Black Sea Fleet’s base in Sevastopol, Crimea. Years before the onset of wider military operations, Russia again offered passports to ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine. Instead of initially trying to create an ethnic conflict however, Russia used the large population of Russians in Ukraine to attempt to take control of the Ukrainian government through political proxies. In 2004, Russian political operatives funneled over $300 million dollars to a pro- Russian presidential candidate and Russian security services helped orchestrate massive electoral fraud to manipulate the outcome of the election. When the vote was overturned and the new Ukrainian administration began building closer ties to the EU, Putin used
economic warfare, primarily through Gazprom’s monopoly of Ukrainian heating oil and natural gas, to pressure the population into turning on the government.
In both Georgia and Ukraine, Russia placed embargoes on goods produced in those countries in order to warn against or punish other movements in the Western direction. Dependency on Russian gas supplies was fostered through subsidies and then followed with demands for payments and threats of shutoffs during the height of winter. In Georgia, Russia regularly used violence, in the form of sabotage against critical infrastructure, terror attacks against security forces and civilians, and air support for separatist actions in order to stymie Tbilisi’s efforts to reestablish control over the restive regions. Russia initially used lower levels of violence in Ukraine but the Russian dominated Berkut Special Police were regularly heavy handed when putting down pro- democracy protests, including the killing of dozens of protesters during the Euromaidan. In both instances, Russia used cyber-warfare to disrupt command and control systems and to help spread propaganda and disinformation to minimize local and international resistance. Despite all of these efforts, Georgia and Ukraine continued to resist Russian domination and Russia ultimately had to use military force to dynamically change the nature of the relationship, albeit at significantly lower levels than an all-out conventional invasion would have required.
During the five-day war in Georgia and during the occupation of Crimea, Russia masked the outset of the military action behind other significant events. Both actions began while world leaders were expressing goodwill at Olympic Games, and while other significant crises and political events indicated a minimal chance of a military reaction from the West. Both actions had limited military objectives that were able to be quickly reached, which minimized the level of ongoing violence and reduced the impetus for Western intervention. The war in Donbas lacked all of these things. It was started while international attention was directly on Russian action in Ukraine. It had unclear objectives, and became increasingly violent as “volunteers” and heavy equipment were introduced piecemeal. Russia attempted to dominate the information domain during all three conflicts to characterize each as an internal ethnic struggle, and Russia’s actions as necessary to prevent genocide, while simultaneously denying the level of Russia’s
involvement and providing disinformation that would further confuse a Western response. In Georgia and Donbas, Russia used diplomatic processes to freeze the conflicts without definitive resolution so that Russia was justified in keeping intervention or “peacekeeping” forces in the region and so that the open nature of the conflict could be used to derail future efforts for either state to join the EU or NATO. Crimea was annexed outright to eliminate the threat to the long-term basing of the Black Sea Fleet, and because the annexation provided a much needed boost to Putin’s domestic popularity.
Hybrid warfare is the combination of political and military forms of war to achieve strategic objectives while minimizing the cost and risk associated with a conventional military campaign. Hybrid warfare by definition does not imply the absence of military force or the use of violence, it requires it. The projection of offensive power is expensive and politically risky, more so when it comes at the end of a linear increase in hostilities and the victim has time to accurately interpret the aggressor’s intent and prepare to resist. By weakening the Georgian and Ukrainian states’ ability to control the entirety of their territories, undermining political, economic and defense development in both countries, and fomenting ethnic divisions, Russia was able to undermine the will and ability of each state to counter Russian aggression before Russia presented a “resolution” of its own design. When Russia continued to pursue the military aspect of hybrid warfare in eastern Ukraine, Kiev was finally able to mount an effective response. The result was a bloody contest of attrition where Russia’s attempts to maintain some level of deniability constrained its ability to introduce a decisive amount of force.