Ukraine Crisis In All Aspects: Putin’s Machiavellian State

Introduction

With Russia’s effort to make a full-scale invasion of Ukraine starting from the late February 2022, Ukraine crisis that has been going on since the 2014 Euromaidan protests reached a new level and turned into a bloody war. Photos and video footages from Ukraine reminded everyone the days of the Second World War, a distant memory that we learn mostly through the documentaries and movies nowadays. Although American intelligence was constantly warning the international public of Russia’s intention in Ukraine, few in Europe and in the rest of the world believed that a classical war with trenches, tanks, bombs, and artillery fire would be possible in the 21st century at the gates of Europe. Yet it happened and it continues to happen in a very close geography to Europe, in Ukraine, next to Poland.

The mistake of European agencies and leaders trying to appease Russia was not the result of negligence for sure; many people in the West did not understand the raison d’état of the current Russia, an authoritarian system based on an old-school geopolitical thinking reflex and a strong cult of leadership. While European states have evolved into democratic regimes and so-called “trading states” or “economic states” in the last three decades following the Cold War with the deepening European integration process, Russia has revived a “Machiavellian state” or the “geopolitical state” of the 19th or the early 20th century under the charismatic leadership of Vladimir Putin.[1] In that sense, the war in Ukraine was not unexpected, but could have been avoided if both sides understood the intrinsic nature of the other side’s regime. Vladimir Putin. In that sense, the war in Ukraine was not unexpected, but could have been avoided if both sides understood the intrinsic nature of the other side’s regime.

In this op-ed, I am going to analyze the Ukrainian crisis in all aspects. I will begin first by summarizing the brief history of Russia-Ukraine relations. In the second part, I will try to analyze the Russian aggression in Ukraine on the basis of current nature of the regime in Russia in contrast to European states as well as NATO’s eastward expansion. The third part will be on my predictions about how the war could end on the basis of interviews made by some former Turkish Armed Forces Generals. I will conclude the paper with a brief Conclusion that will summarize the main  arguments of the paper.

Brief History of Russia-Ukraine Relations

Russians and Ukrainians have many things in common starting from their history, ethnic roots as well as their resembling language. Both countries’ distant past is based on the Kievan Rus period, a loosely unified state in the Eastern and Northern Europe that existed between the 9th and the 13th centuries. Although the state’s founders were Nordic Rurikids, this state had basically served as the first Russian state composed of different Slavic nations including Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians. Thanks to this shared history, an “acculturation” phenomenon took place between Ukrainians and Russians, which led to the formation of similar -if not alike- cultures and lifestyles.

 
However, this shared history is not a barrier for Ukrainians to have -what Political Psychology experts call- a “chosen trauma” against Russian influence as well. For instance, during the Bolshevik rule in USSR, the Holodomor or the Great Famine took place in 1932-1933 in Ukraine and eventually led to the death of 3.5 to 5 million people due to the miscalculation made by the Soviet Politburo on the grain production. While many historians interpret the event as a terrible mistake caused by the inherent conflict of planning in the Soviet-style communist economic model coupled with the USSR’s rapid industrialization effort, many others, especially Ukrainian nationalists focus on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s hidden intention to kill millions of Ukrainians to weaken the Ukrainian nationalist movement. The event constitutes one of the most tragic events in modern day Ukraine and a source for anti-Russian sentiments.

Then-Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma holds his book Ukraine is not Russia during its presentation at the 16th Moscow International Book Fair on September 3, 2003

Although two countries lived in gradual peace and harmony during the Soviet era following the Holodomor and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the handover of Crimea to Ukraine from Russia in 1954 to show his sympathy for Ukrainians, with the dissolution of USSR, problems reemerged between two states. Problems concentrated on two major issues between Moscow and Kiev: 1-) What to do with the nuclear weapons in Ukraine and 2-) the fate of the Black Sea fleet. These problems caused the emergence of a new type of Ukrainian nationalism as well, strikingly different from Pan-Slavism or Orthodox Christian identity that existed in the earlier decades and centuries. Thus, the second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma (1994-2005) even wrote a book called Ukraine is not Russia in 2003 to contribute to the developing national identity process of Ukrainians.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signing the Budapest Memorandum on December 5, 1994

Two countries solved the biggest problem – nuclear weapons dilemma – in 1994 with the Budapest Memorandum. This agreement was made with the United States’ active support and aid and Ukraine was given $500 million U.S. dollars ($) grant and a guarantee for its territorial integrity. In return, Kiev had to return all its nuclear arsenal to Moscow and gave up from being the third biggest nuclear power of the period after U.S. and Russia.

Concerning the second problem, in 1997, two countries signed the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet to make the partition of the Black Sea fleet. Accordingly, the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet that was headquartered in the Crimea at the time was partitioned between Russia (81.7 %) and Ukraine (18.3 %). Moreover, in exchange, Moscow agreed to pay $526 million U.S. dollars as a compensation for its part of the divided fleet. In addition, Ukraine agreed to lease Crimean naval facilities to Russia for 20 years until 2017, with an automatic 5 years renewal option. In return, Russia would pay Ukraine $97 million U.S. dollars annually for leasing Crimean bases. Again, the treaty -similar to Budapest Memorandum- guaranteed the Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty including Crimea and Donbas. In that sense, the reason why Ukrainians still insist on fighting against the mighty Russia is their international rights guaranteed by these two agreements.

Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned and hospitalized after his electoral success

Problems in bilateral relations came to surface especially in the 2000s with the pro-Western and Russia-skeptic politicians reaching to the top positions in Ukraine following democratic elections. In the 2004 presidential election, pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko won the battle against the Moscow-backed candidate Viktor Yanukovych. However, due to electoral fraud claims, the Ukraine Supreme Court ordered a re-run. The decision led to huge protests in Ukraine known as the “Orange Revolution” (due to Yushchenko supporters wearing orange colored clothes), which proved the power of pro-democracy groups in Ukraine. Eventually in the repeated election Yushchenko became the President, but he was later poisoned by dioxin and hospitalized. He survived and continued to preside, but permanent spots and taints appeared on his face. Ukraine’s Europe moment of this era was symbolized with the Ukrainian singer Ruslana winning the Eurovision contest with her “Wild Dances” song.  

The Kerch Strait Bridge or the Crimean Bridge is under attack by missiles and drones nowadays

In 2010-2014 period, with a coercive diplomacy based on energy, Russia took back the control of Ukraine and developed better relations with Kiev under Dmitry Medvedev and later Vladimir Putin’s presidency. The Ukrainian President of the era was pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych. However, in 2014, when President Yanukovych decided not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU) and instead chose to develop closer ties with Russia and become a part of the Moscow-based Eurasian Economic Union, Euromaidan protests started to force Yanukovych to step down. Events led to the fleeing of Yanukovych from Ukraine and the formation of a pro-Western interim government which later made Petro Poroshenko the new Ukrainian President in a democratic election. Russia interpreted the event as a Western conspiracy and a coup against the democratically elected Yanukovych government, while the pro-Western groups in Kiev pointed out that the former President was impeached in the parliament (Rada) and a democratic transition process took place in accordance with the law. In order to prevent Ukraine to move westward towards the EU, NATO, and the U.S., Russian President Vladimir responded immediately and annexed Crimea from Ukraine to Russia through a controversial referendum. Moscow also established a huge bridge called the “Kerch Strait Bridge” or the “Crimean Bridge” to show its presence and power in Crimea. In the meantime, Moscow began to support Russian speaking and pro-Russian independence seeking groups in the east of Ukraine in the Donbas region. Thus, the first stage of the war started with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Starting from 2014 Crimean annexation, there had been numerous efforts to end up the Ukrainian crisis and to find a way to mediate between two countries. Germany and France for instance established the Normandy Format in order to resolve the war in Donbas and the wider Russo-Ukrainian conflict. While the U.S. tried to help Kiev regime politically, financially, and militarily, the EU also offered some help especially in politics and economics. In 2019, former comedian and actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected the new President of Ukraine against the incumbent Petro Poroshenko in a democratic election. Having Jewish roots and ties with the show business, Zelenskyy was able to find popular support in the Western world to support Ukrainians to stand against Russia and to reclaim their territories. Especially Washington and Brussels were very enthusiastic to back Zelenskyy with the aim of weakening Russia and to prevent further irredentist claims by Putin towards Baltic and Eastern European states.

As the war approached, some formulas such as the “neutrality” and later “Finlandization” were put forward by important statesmen in the Western world including Henry Kissinger, Emmanuel Macron etc. However, with the Russian military campaign in February 24, 2022, which was called as a “special military operation” by Moscow for the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine, a full-scale war has started between two countries. Thus, the second and the more dangerous stage of the war began in the late February 2022. Western countries -primarily the U.S.- were quick to take decisions to provide financial and military aid to Ukrainian Army and people for helping them to defend their country. Some European countries having strong relations with Moscow such as Germany had hard times to decide at the beginning, but eventually they had to join the embargo and boycott the regime of Putin in Russia. Türkiye (Turkey) on the other hand has been trying to keep its ties with Moscow to prevent a greater disaster at a time when President Putin is talking about tactical nuclear weapons owned by his country. Surprisingly, the third world has also been very reluctant to support the Ukrainian cause so far and due to reactions towards the “colonial” and “imperialist” West, many developing nations do not consider the war as “just” as it was expected including India, African countries, Middle Eastern countries etc. In that sense, the war between Vladimir and Volodymyr has quickly turned into the war between the West and the East.

Four Ukrainian oblasts annexed by Russia on September 30, 2022 during the war

Although the Russian attempt to take Kiev failed by April 2022 thanks to the heroic resistance of the Ukrainians, Moscow in the late September 2022 annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts from Ukraine and further increased its territories. Russian Army was able to make gains in the east although Ukrainian Army fought back and was supported heavily by the U.S. and other NATO countries both militarily and economically. The war led to the approximately 8 million Ukrainians leaving their country to immigrate to other countries including Poland, Germany, Russia, Czechia, and the United Kingdom. Although the number of total casualties is a speculation for the moment, by taking the average of numbers provided by international observers, we can easily guess that more than a hundred thousand people (soldiers and civilians) died because of the ongoing war. Moreover, Russian Army targeted Ukrainian cities’ infrastructure leaving millions of people in a very desperate situation. The war still continues and no political solution could be found until now. In February 2023, China offered a plan to declare ceasefire and end the war if possible while the U.S. did not consider Beijing as a neutral mediator due to its close ties with Kremlin. Türkiye also made some efforts to revitalize diplomacy (e.g. Antalya Diplomacy Forum in 2022 which hosted Russian and Ukrainian delegations), but none of these efforts reached a concrete consensus so far. In early June 2023, Ukraine launched a substantial counteroffensive against Russian forces but failed to create any meaningful change until now.

Analyzing Russian Aggression

As American political scientist W. Phillips Shively’s famous “Introduction to Political Science” book suggests, the politics is about “power and choice”. Here while “power” refers to the dark side of politics including wars, military threats, sabotages, assassinations, and political, economic, and cultural competition between states, international organizations, and sub-state groups etc., “choice” is about brighter aspects such as democratic procedures, human rights, freedoms, aid campaigns, and cooperation between states and other international and national actors in humanitarian matters. In that sense, an ideal politics of the modern day should be the product of a 50 % – 50 % equilibrium of these two extremes.

Unfortunately, in the early 21st century, while the Western states have evolved into a new equilibrium in favor of the “choice” aspect of politics with a dominating focus on human right matters, economic welfare, and global problems such as the climate change etc., some other anti-democratic states have emerged as pure Machiavelist and “power”-oriented and begun to use all dirty tactics to precede and lead in the political game including wars, foreign electoral interventions, cyberattacks, terrorism etc. This led to the emergence of two camps: democracies and non-democracies as it was proven by the U.S. (Biden) administration’s effort to gather all democracies in the world with the Democracy Summits each year. Now that the struggle is crystallized between two camps, it is hard for many countries having not fully regimes, but a shared responsibility for the global order (e.g. China and Türkiye) to mediate between two camps and prevent a new Cold War -which would weaken the globalization and make life more difficult for consumers- to take place.

For me, the European failure to understand what was coming in Ukraine from Russia is related to the difference in the existential reasons of the states in two worlds: the West and the East. In the West, supported by a liberal philosophical background and free market-based economics, the purpose of states is to make people safe, healthy, happy, cultivated, and rich. The state is conceptualized as a tool for the well-being of its citizens. Historically, European states are established by developing bourgeois classes who asked for more political and economic freedoms from their autocrats to secure their wellbeing and wealth acquired through colonialism and free trade. Now that most of the European countries are EU members, the EU also functions in the same manner and try to do the best for its citizens. Having solved its territorial problems and political/economic system discussions, almost all Western states -only with the distinction of the U.S. which has been trying to become a global power by preserving its military hegemony- try to protect themselves and to focus on global problems through cooperation with other states, primarily the democratic ones.

This is related to what some political scientists call as the “trading state” or “economic state” pattern. Trading states aim to extend trade and peaceful relations and do not engage in irredentist and expansionist policies. Trading states are associated mostly with democratic regime and Idealism in International Relations theory, but an authoritarian -if not totalitarian- state such as China or a hybrid regime like Türkiye could also show symptoms of a trading state due to its national interests. In that sense, there is no black and white in trading states model and the world is rather perceived as different tones of gray. Likewise, the political game is about relative gains and losses, not a complete victory or failure. In addition, trading states’ people choose businessmen, civil society leaders, minority groups’ representatives [a female leader (Jacinda Arden/Angela Merkel), an African American President (Barack Obama), an Indian-British Prime Minister (Rishni Sunak), and peace-oriented statesmen to lead their country for a short while (e.g. two terms and 8 years maximum in the U.S.) with strict constitutional limits and/or customary practices. Lastly, trading states of economic states take the international law and the United Nations (UN) order seriously and they want to comply with the existing norms and resolutions, again with the exception of the U.S. which acts as the global hegemon and tries to keep this system alive, valid, and strong.   

Machiavelli and Putin

Machiavellian or Machiavelist states on the other hand (another term that could be used instead is “geopolitical state”), are the ones that adhere to Realism as the main source of inspiration in their foreign policy behavior and perceive the world as a zero-sum game playground in which there could be only total winners and complete losers. Machiavellian states are security-centered and act on the basis of their national interests only. In addition, this so-called “national” interest is almost all the time defined from the prism of the security bureaucracy. It all makes meaningful following this rationale that Russia is ruled by a former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin (while Ukraine is ruled by a comedian and an actor) and other top silovik members (top officials of security bureaucracy), who understands the political game as a black or white matter. For Putin, a statesman’s aim is more traditional and simpler as it is in medieval war-based computer games: keep and expand the land, plow the field to feed your people, destroy and weaken your enemy, make the state strong and influential. Thus, Putin refuses the loss of the USSR (he once even said that the fall of USSR was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century) and tries to prevent Russia to become an ordinary nation-state as other European countries. Since Russia does not possess great economic advantages in the current global economic system (Russia’s total GDP is around $2,000,000 U.S. dollars, smaller than Canada and Brazil), Kremlin uses its relative advantage in the field of military strength to reclaim its grandeur in global politics. At this point, what makes Putin strong and legitimized is NATO’s expansionism which is not welcomed by everyone. Since today’s Russia is already much smaller and weaker compared to the USSR and most of the Russians think that NATO’s eastward expansion was against earlier promises given to Moscow, Putinism could find a reasonable ground to flourish and reproduce itself.    

Two countries’ Presidents: Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Historically also non-Western states do not follow the bourgeois democratic model of European countries. States are not the product of a class-based conflict which resulted in favor of a group that demands for more political and economic freedoms in these countries. Rather, the state is established by the security bureaucracy elite (modern Türkiye, current Russia) and/or a revolutionary party (Chinese Communist Party in China, CHP in Türkiye, ANC in South Africa, Congress Party in India) which all prioritize the state’s interest, not their people’s benefits. In that sense, the logic of the state is completely different in two camps and in the East, what is important is the power of the state, not the security or wellbeing of people. For sure, this kind of states would not find any problem or mistake in the killing or -in the best case- the jailing of journalists or politicians criticizing the regime and the supreme leader. Just look at the fate of Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny, and -possibly- Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin as the proof of that for the case of Russia. Furthermore, it is not surprising to witness that in Machiavellian states leaders’ ruling term continues until they get too old or discredited. Thus, leaders in Machiavellian states should be strong, alpha type character and rule their country with an iron first.

While trading states follow the course of Idealism or Neo-Institutionalism, Machiavellian states attach themselves completely to realist principles and Machiavelist tactics. That is why, destroying the infrastructure of Ukraine and forcing millions of women and children to leave their homes would be a detail of the war Russia (somehow similar to Stalin’s approach defining the death of a person as “tragedy”, but the loss of millions as “statistics”), a small fault for the greater good: to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence -in the Russkiy mir- in accordance with the “near abroad” doctrine. In that sense, Russian soldiers dying in the war is also not a big problem; the point is to keep Russian flag up and Russian state strong. This statist mentality is also internalized by people (citizens) and elites as proven by the lack of any real scientific or political criticism made by Russian scholars and intellectuals towards the regime’s warfare policies. So, what strategists call the “curse of geopolitics” made the war inevitable when Moscow understood that it cannot tolerate Kiev slipping into the hands of Washington and Brussels. That is why, being the largest state on earth by far, Kremlin thinks that they need to take some more lands from Ukraine as well to punish Ukrainians and the West for leaving them. This also relates us to Machiavellian states’ disregard for the international law, which they think as useless and unnecessary since the power is the sole determinant of the political and diplomatic competition.

But one thing is for sure: this is not the result of Putin being warmonger, it is rather the logic of the state that is completely different from the West and somehow similar to other Eastern states in some ways. This approach is formulated best with John Mearsheimer’s “Offensive Realism” theory, which states that in power politics and especially in great power politics, geopolitics and national interests matter only and states would do the best for their survival and expanding their interests since they could never be sure of other states’ intentions. That is why, Mearsheimer blames the U.S. and NATO for provoking Russia and prays for a Russian win in Ukraine since he thinks otherwise Putin could opt for tactical nuclear weapons option. So, the “Russian roulette” as defined by Mearsheimer becomes a dangerous game not only for Ukrainians, but for the whole world.

French demographer Emmanuel Todd also follows this pattern from a more sociological point of view and claims that the war is not between Russia and Ukraine, but rather between Russia and the West, which could be easily turned into the Third World War. Todd focuses on some demographic statistics (birth rates, murder rates, suicide rates, child death rates etc.) to analyze the Putinist regime in Moscow and concludes that the regime is in fact progressive at these levels. If we remember that Todd was the first in Western academia to predict the fall of the USSR, his different conclusion/prediction about today’s Russia is interesting and maybe worrisome. So, following Todd’s logic, we might claim that Putinism will stay with or without Putin.

Then we might now ask to ourselves, what directs people around the world to have sympathy for a former KGB agent who tries to invade other countries’ territories and threaten them to use atomic bombs on their cities just because they want to become a member to another international organization/union. I think the first reason is the previous mistakes made by Washington; namely the President George W. Bush’s not very well justified and welcomed personal war in Iraq in 2003, which led to the death of hundred thousand of Muslims and portrayed the U.S. as a “barbaric” imperialist country. In the similar vein, the American use of nukes over Japan at the end of Second World War also does not give a very friendly image for Washington in the rest of the world. Secondly, -and this applies to Russians and Russian supporter countries mostly- many people think that the “corrupt” West lied to Moscow about the NATO’s eastwards expansion. We do not have concrete evidence/treaty on that matter, but even the former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s criticism for the NATO expansion and his “not one inch eastward” assurance to Mikhail Gorbachev proves that the West and the U.S. also could have made some serious mistakes under the image of “perfect” democratic and liberal world/state. Now that the U.S. tries to exclude China as well from the international system and drag NATO into the Indo-Pacific (despite the clear foundation scope of the institution that aims to protect Euro-Atlantic region from communism/USSR), Russia’s resistance finds support in the non-Western world.

Predictions for the Result of the War

After having some phone-based interviews with retired Turkish Armed Forces Generals[1], and especially after reading the most recent news about the delivery of F-16 jets to Ukraine by Denmark and Netherlands, I expect the continuation and even the intensification of the war in the coming months especially concerning clashes between two countries’ aerial forces and drone systems/vehicles. This is because the war is fought for some reasons and both sides’ aims are not materialized or their wishes are not satisfied yet.

To begin with Russia, the actor who actually started the war, the aim is crystal clear: to put Ukraine into Russia’s orbit once again as a “satellite state”. To do this, Russia first played the friendly/brotherly country role and Putin hoped Ukrainians will not resist to Russian Army. When this proved to be wrong, Putin implemented harsher tactics and Russian Army bombed even hospitals during the Ukrainian invasion to break the resistance. Russia will continue to attack until Zelenskyy resigns and a friendlier President/government takes over in Kiev. To punish Kiev, Putin will never give up from his territorial gains in Crimea and Donbas as well. Since Ukrainians continue to resist, it means Russia will continue to attack as well maybe with new military tactics this time. In addition, popular support for Russian President Putin continues in Russia despite heavy criticism coming from the Western countries and international media institutions. Since an authoritarian leader could not afford to lose war and declare defeat, it seems logical that Putin and Russia will continue to attack to Ukrainian resistance forces. Russia’s dilemma in Ukraine is that in case Putin looks weak, this would encourage other regional countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc. to distance themselves from Moscow. Thus, it is a war Putin cannot afford to lose and that is why Mearsheimer and Merkel’s warnings about taking Putin’s tactical nuclear weapons threat seriously is understandable.

Looking from the perspective of Ukraine on the other hand, the picture is clear once again: what Ukrainians want is to take back the control of their legally guaranteed territories and ask for a war reparation from Moscow. Ukrainians fight for their land, honor, and dignity and it seems like the support for President Zelenskyy is still very high. So, despite being under miserable conditions, thanks to the Western economic and military support, Ukraine will resist until the very end and will not stop until they drag Russian forces out of their territory. Western countries will also encourage and support Ukrainians since they think this is a “just war” as claimed by Michael Warzer and the war weakens Russia a lot and harms the image of Moscow and Putin as an influential alternative to the U.S.-based global order. International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Putin shows the West is getting what it wants and continues to isolate Russia in the Western hemisphere and in countries where the West dominates.

Then, is it possible to mediate between two sides and end or at least stop the war before more atrocities occur? Yes, it is possible, but a grand bargain and consensus supported by major powers (Russia, the U.S., the UK, the EU, China) is needed to do so. Instead of total destruction of his country, at one point President Zelenskyy might decide to declare ceasefire and take the battle into the refrigerator to turn into a frozen conflict. This would require American support and motivation for sure since Ukrainians are ready to die for their country. As the dirty or the dark side of politics tell us -best in the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli- every creature is better alive than dead. So, saving hundred thousand of Ukrainians by making some territorial concessions and turning Ukraine into a buffer state between the West and the East is still a viable option. Another option is to convince Moscow to make a fair sharing of Ukraine like Germany and Russia did in the past to Poland or the Allies and USSR did to Germany after the Second World War. So, the Western part of Ukraine could be an EU and even a NATO member, whereas the Eastern part will be under Moscow’s control. This might be another scenario for ending the war, silencing the guns, and saving millions of Ukrainians (especially women and children) from hunger and death.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in this paper I tried to analyze the Ukraine crisis in all aspects. First, I tried to provide a background information for the historical relations between Moscow and Kiev. Since I am not an historian and not all current political issues are derived from the history, I focused only on most important issues that shape people’s minds. Secondly, I tried to analyze Russian aggression with the Realism-Idealism dilemma as well as trading state (economic state)-Machiavellian state (geopolitical state) contrast. I tried to explain how Russia and many other authoritarian/totalitarian states differ from the democratic and trading states of Europe in their perception of the world and behavioral pattern. Thirdly, after having consultations to Turkish military experts, I tried to analyze the next phase of the war. In this part, I concluded that the war will escalate and especially aerial-based attacks will intensify on both sides. That is why, the ceasefire and the peace options are not easy to reach, but I also wrote my formula about how the war could end at one point. This formula is based on a big compromise between the West and Russia about how to make the partition of Ukraine. “Finlandization” of Ukraine with some territorial concessions to Russia or the “divided Germany” model seem the most realistic scenarios to me looking at the current power balance.

Sources

 (1) Oğuzhan Göksel (2023), “Trading State or Machiavellian State? Re-evaluating the Political Economy of Turkish Foreign Policy under Erdoğan”, UPA Strategic Affairs, Vol. 4, no: 2, pp. 72-107.