“Does Russia still matter?” That was the central question of a recent discussion with leading American national security expert Fiona Hill, hosted by Russia Matters and moderated by Graham Allison, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, and former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Hill’s answer to that question was in the affirmative, rooted in what she described as Russia’s perennial significance in global affairs, ranging from climate change to European insecurity and from Middle Eastern power dynamics to nuclear security. 

Russia's Enduring Significance 

It was Allison, a renowned expert on U.S. national security and defense policy, who opened the Feb. 6 discussion by observing that at the very least, Russia has a primary claim to global importance because of its nuclear arsenal. Agreeing with Allison’s opening remarks, Hill elaborated: “Russia is not going anywhere, and it will always matter … Russia will continue to matter and so will Putin.” She noted that while the state of relations with Russia is a “tragedy,” Russia’s intrinsic attributes, including its size and resources, allow Russia to significantly impact U.S. security. Despite facing international scrutiny and sanctions, Russia maintains an "incredible cultural impact" globally and remains an "influential player on the Eurasian landmass," according to Hill. 

She went on to advocate for a 360-degree view to understand the Kremlin's comprehensive strategy, which spans beyond mere energy politics to include nuclear power and technological advancements and combating climate change. Hill warned against underestimating Russia's capabilities and intentions, emphasizing the need for the United States to create a cohesive Russian strategy instead of reinventing its approach with each administration. Hill added that while U.S. presidents have come and gone, Vladimir Putin has been in power for nearly 25 years and remains “very predictable in certain aspects.”

On March 13, President Vladimir Putin granted an interview, in which he again delved into the conditions under which he says he would initiate the use of nuclear weapons. His remarks were so ambiguous that it caused mainstream Western media organizations—which tend to agree on what to emphasize in news out of the Kremlin—to put divergent headlines on the news stories that they ran about this particular interview. “Putin, in Pre-Election Messaging, Is Less Strident on Nuclear War. The Russian leader struck a softer tone about nuclear weapons in an interview with state television,” was the NYT’s headline. In contrast, the FT’s headline was “Russia ‘prepared’ for nuclear war, warns Vladimir Putin. President resumes bullish rhetoric over use of atomic arsenal if west threatens Moscow’s sovereignty,” while CBS News ran with “Putin again threatens to use nuclear weapons, claims Russia's arsenal ‘much more’ advanced than America's” and WSJ led with “Putin Rattles Nuclear Saber Ahead of Presidential Elections; Raising specter of nuclear confrontation.”

So, which is it? Has Putin just struck a softer tone about nuclear weapons or has he rattled his nuclear saber yet again? The answer is both.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was quoted on Jan. 17, 2024, as saying that every member of the so-called Ramstein group should give the equivalent of 0.25% of their gross domestic product to Kyiv annually, which “would raise at least €120 billion ($131 billion) and swing the conflict in Ukraine’s favor,” according to Bloomberg.

In her claim, Kallas did not list members of this group, which is officially known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), only noting that the group comprised more than 50 countries, including all 31 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Thus, we contacted Kallas’ staff to ask for the list of members. The prime minister’s office referred us to the Wikipedia page, and advised contacting the press service of the U.S. Department of Defense, which typically hosts the group’s meetings at the U.S. Air Force’s Ramstein air base in Germany (thus, the informal name of the group), for an official list. In response to the RM inquiry, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Charlie Dietz identified 43 countries (44 including Ukraine) as members of UDCG, listed below in Table 1.

The past few months have been awash with forecasts by European and NATO officials and commanders that Russia may attack NATO in the not-so-distant future. Some of these high-ranking forecasters, such as NATO military committee chairman Rob Bauer, Belgian army chief Michel Hofman, Latvian General Valdemaras Rupsys, Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service chief Kaupo Rosin and his colleagues, explicitly condition such aggression against Europe on Russia’s victory in Ukraine, while others in their public comments just forecast the time range for aggression without explicitly the aggression on the victory. These include Britain’s defense secretary Grant Shapps, Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Bulgarian PM Nikolai Denkov. There are also those who claim Russia is not interested in initiating an attack on NATO at all. These include Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The problem with these assurances that NATO will not be a target for a Russian military attack, however, is that is what the Russian leadership had said about Ukraine before Feb. 24, 2022. So, will Russia attack NATO once ‘done’ in Ukraine? If so, when? The short answer, according to Europeans, who believe such an attack is probable, is anytime between 3 and 20 years (if you exclude, as we don, the German military’s exercise scenario which asks its participants to imagine Russia will attack within 2025).  The longer answer is below with most of the forecasters predicting an aggression in less than 10 years, which is alarming, given that people – who are familiar with European members of NATO’s preparations to defend themselves unaided by U.S.— do not expect these members to acquire such a capability at least in the next decade, according to  Bloomberg.

As the U.S. Congress wrestles with a legislative package to  provide continued assistance to Ukraine, a series of discussions on the Russian-Ukrainian war held by a study group, which I recently led at Harvard’s Kennedy School, seems highly relevant. Over multiple meetings during the fall semester, approximately 30 students debated the key issues confronting Americans as a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Students were assigned to one side of each debate, meaning that many of them were not representing their personal views. One of those debates considered whether the United States should continue to provide the substantial level of military assistance to Ukraine that it had since the start of the war in February 2022. The arguments the two sides deployed in making their case are directly relevant to the current debate on Capitol Hill. 

Since December, my colleagues at Russia Matters and I have been monitoring how Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and its commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi have sparred over who should assume prime responsibility for the plan to conscript up to 500,000 Ukrainians. As we watched the two employ what Sun Tzu would have described as “indirect methods” to avoid becoming the person publicly associated with the unpopular plan, we could not help wondering whether the Ukrainian authorities actually have the capacity to add (and keep) half a million to the fighting force, if the government and parliament eventually agree on a bill that would authorize such an addition. Here’s what I have found out in my effort to answer that question.

A cross-section of views on Putin's revelation that he plans to seek yet another presidential term.

Russia’s RBC news agency has just published its summary of a study mostly conducted before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine looking at the attitudes of young Russians toward their country’s development and global role, as well as their own contributions to both. According to RBC’s summary of the report, the majority of young Russians opposed sacrificing their lifestyle for the sake of Russia’s might, and one-third did not want Russia to pursue global goals.

The report was co-researched and drafted by a polling center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies and the Higher School of Economics. It should be noted that, first, all three entities are either directly or indirectly affiliated with the Russian state, and, second, most of the polling of the young Russians (4,000 individuals aged between 14 and 35) took place in 2021, before Vladimir Putin chose to start the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022. These factors should be taken into account when thinking how forthcoming the respondents were, as well and how their (and their pollsters’) views may have evolved. We should also, of course, factor in how fear of persecution may have influenced the responses.[1] Still, there are some points in the report worth pondering.

A second Russian pollster reports that the share of Russians who advocate for peace negotiations with Ukraine has exceeded the share of their compatriots who favor continuing the war. The devil is in details, however.

When It Comes to Ukraine, Doves Appear to Continue to Outnumber Hawks in Russia

The share of Russians who advocate for peace talks with Ukraine has overtaken the share of those who favor continuing the war for the first time since the Russian Field (RF) pollster began taking stock of Russians’ attitudes toward their country’s so-called special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine in April 2022.

When asked by this pollster on Oct. 21-29, 2023, if Russia should continue the so-called special military operation (SVO) or move to peace talks, 48% chose the latter, while 39% said Russia should opt for the former. In contrast, the share of peace and war advocates was 44% and 45%, respectively, in the previous poll conducted by this Moscow-based private research agency in June 2023. Moreover, when asked in October whether they would support Vladimir Putin’s decision to sign a peace deal and stop the SVO if he were to do so tomorrow, only 18% answered in the negative, while 74% answered in the affirmative, the highest such share in the history of RF’s polling on the subject since April 2022. It also follows from RF’s October poll that many of its respondents are disinclined to support sacrificing more Russians lives for the sake of the SVO. When asked whether they supported a second wave of mobilization in Russia, 58% said they do not, and 32% said they do. Moreover, 61% of Russians said they would have negative emotions if a second wave of mobilization was declared. RF’s findings that the share of doves among common Russians is growing are concurrent with recent measurements of public opinion on the SVO conducted by Russia’s leading independent pollster, the Levada Center. This center’s two latest polls on the SVO have revealed that the share of Russians who advocate for peace talks (56% in October, compared to 51% in September) has continued to be greater than the share of those who support continuing the war (37% in October, compared to 39% in September).3

Time journalist Simon Shuster has just published an article titled “Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight,” which contains three revelations that do not bode well for that struggle. First, the article reveals that Zelensky—who remains staunchly opposed to either truce or peace—is so convinced of Ukraine’s victory that one of his closest aides describes him as “delud[ing] himself.” Second, the article reveals that after his September trip to the U.S., Zelensky has been feeling betrayed by his Western allies, who he feels have left him without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it. Last but not least, even if the West did come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them,” one of Zelensky’s close aides told Time’s Shuster, revealing that the average age of a Ukrainian soldier has already reached 43.1 That third revelation is, perhaps, the most consequential of the revelations that Shuster—who has been relentlessly covering post-Soviet conflicts for decades—makes in his Nov. 1 article.

The reason I think this last revelation might be the most consequential is because it shows both Ukraine’s adversary and its allies, that, on its current trajectory, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU) will have to conscript pre-pension age males in the not-so-distance future. And here’s why: Less than a month after the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, the average age of Ukrainian soldiers was 30-35, according to FT.2 Thus, if the ageing of the ZSU’s rank-and-file continues at the rate reported between the launch of the invasion and now, then the average age of Ukrainian soldiers one year and two years from now would be 48-51 and 52-58, respectively. Thanks to the aging of Ukraine’s population, the pre-war number of 35 to 49-year-old males (a 26% share of the total male population) was estimated by the World Bank to be greater than the number of 20 to 34-year-old males (a 17% share of the total male population) in 2022.3 However, older cohorts tend to have greater health problems, especially in a country with a male life expectancy of 65, ranking 98th of 123 in the world by that metric. As the close aide to Zelensky explained to Shuster, “They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with ... This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”