Daily News Analysis

Western media hypes Russian invasion of Ukraine, but what would an actual conflict look like?

Crescent International

Jumada' al-Ula' 19, 14432021-12-23

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The Western corporate media continues to peddle sensationalist headlines about the inevitable Russian invasion of Ukraine.

There is little understanding of what an actual conflict would look like.

Crescent International considers a Russian invasion of Ukraine as highly unlikely.

If for some unforeseen reason the conflict erupts, it would be fought on multiple levels and in several regions beyond Europe.

We recently explained why conventional wars in current times are irrelevant, thus a conflict predicted by the corporate media is unlikely to involve national armies on a mass scale.

However, even without the involvement of conventional armies, the conflict would be the most serious and widespread fought in Europe since 1945.

If Moscow decides to show NATO decisively that it is not welcome in the post-Soviet space, the primary force doing the fighting on the West’s side will be the Ukrainian army.

This will not, however, be enough to make the Russian incursion politically costly for Moscow.

Thus, NATO regimes are likely to internationalize the conflict a la Syria.

Opening multiple fronts for one’s enemies in the contemporary world seems to be common practice.

The West’s attempt to internationalize the conflict would be to infuse the cause of the Crimean-Tatars and the pro-independence Chechen diaspora residing in Europe into the Ukrainian war.

This is already taking place, but it will be done on a much larger scale.

Analysis of Western media platforms targeting Russian speaking audiences nudging such an approach shows that this policy is quite realistic.

Western regimes will hope to ignite frictions inside Russia using the pro-independence sentiment in the North Caucasus and beyond.

The above outlined strategy is unlikely to produce any tangible long-term military or political advantage for NATO regimes.

Such a strategy is rooted in outdated socio-political understanding of the post-Soviet space.

Any attempt to resurrect the political narratives of the 1990s and use them against Russia in the Caucasus, Central Asia and inside Russia proper will face economic, political, and military obstacles.

At the economic level, Western sanctions will force migrant workers to return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, which in return will destabilize Russia’s underbelly.

Nevertheless, the West itself will suffer from the ramifications of such a development.

An all-out proxy war on Russia will mean that Moscow will not supply Western Europe with energy products and the alternative routes from Central Asia will be too unstable to rely on.

On the military front, participation of the Crimean-Tatars and other Russian speaking Muslims affiliated with the takfiri trend on the Ukrainian side will increase Moscow’s resolve for a military approach and undermine the legitimacy of the Ukrainian cause.

Also, without significant Turkish input, Western plans against Russia in Ukraine will have limited impact on Moscow.

It will be impossible to undermine Russian presence in the Crimea without Tatar assistance.

The Tatars’ reliance on Turkey rather than Brussels or Washington for political guidance precludes this possibility as Ankara is interested in having stable political and economic relations with Russia.

The above aspects of the much-hyped potential Russian attack on Ukraine are just some of the important broader key variables.

Informed observers of the region would be able to see even by examining some of the variables that the war in Ukraine does not benefit Russia, as it would create many unnecessary problems for Moscow.

Thus, the latest massive flood of news headlines in Western media outlets about the so-called Russian plan to invade Ukraine are simply a media hype.

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