Russian Forecasting and Pre-emption: The Prelude to the Invasion of Ukraine

Russian Strategic Forecasting

One of the most notable characteristics of the Russian approach to national security is the extensive reliance on forecasting: a largely positivistic and formalized method is used to predict future trends and scenarios. According to a RAND report, this scientifically based method was developed in the decades following World War II, and “assumes that the armed forces are part of a larger state system that consists of interrelated political, economic, historical, cultural, technological, and military elements, and functions in certain geopolitical conditions” (Reach et al., 2022, p. 3). Describing the method, the report notes that “trends in many of these broad categories … are assessed in the present and forecast into the future to identify potential threats to Russia’s military security and to conduct strategic planning” (Reach et al., 2022, p. 3). There is also a range of Russian literature concerned with this strategic monitoring and forecasting process (for example Belokon’, 2018; Kruglov, 2016; Strategicheskoye Prognozirovaniye, 2016; Tsyrendorzhiyev, 2014). The Center for Military-Political Research (TsVPI) at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO), itself part of the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, defined the process of strategic forecasting:

Further, in the Russian view, this process of predicting future trends should be directly linked to planning; “in fact, strategic planning should therefore be based on objective strategic forecasting” (Strategicheskoye Prognozirovaniye, 2016). Indeed,

The use of the terms “danger” (opasnost’), “challenge” (vyzov), and “threat” (ugroza) in the quotes above is not accidental. These terms have specific definitions and largely act as the primary output of the Russian strategic monitoring and forecasting process. A military danger (voyennaya opasnost’) is described as a situation in which

A military danger may be of such severity that it will be categorized as a challenge or a threat. A challenge is defined as “the desire of a state (or group of states) to counteract another state (or group of states) in the implementation of national interests. A challenge (vyzov) represents the first, embryonic phase of an escalation between actors in the international community” (Tyutyunnikov, 2018, p. 81).

A threat, on the other hand, defined as the “immediate possibility of [something] causing damage; [possibly] an attack on freedom, sovereignty, independence, cultural heritage and material values”, is understood in this monitoring system as the level immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities (Tyutyunnikov, 2018, p. 81). These definitions will be important for the reader when Russian threat perception is discussed below.

This scientifically based monitoring and forecasting process, serving as the basis for strategic planning, is not only restricted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; it permeates Russian state institutions, being present, for example, in the Russian General Staff. The head of the Department of Research and Analysis of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, S. P. Belokon’, described the method for defining the level of national security as aiming to

In other words, a partially scientific modelling of international relations is used to measure the national security of the Russian Federation. Belokon’ explains further:

Again, this shows the operation of a scientifically based analysis employed to predict future outcomes and thus give decision-makers the opportunity to act pre-emptively.

The Russian concern with forecasting is also present in statements by Russian officials. For example, two speeches made at the Russian Academy of Military Sciences by the Chief of the Russian General Staff, General of the Army V. V. Gerasimov, emphasized the need for scientifically based forecasting of future conflicts. These speeches are often cited in Western literature as an argument for a Russian approach that extensively exploits non-military measures, especially in the “grey zone” between war and peace. However, as will be elaborated further down, this is a misinterpretation – they are primarily instructions to the Russian military theoretical collegium to look into the future, cautioning against any assumption that potential military opponents to the Russian Federation will follow traditional approaches. In the 2013 speech, Gerasimov stated:

Similarly, in the 2019 speech, he goes on to argue:

Putin has also repeatedly pointed to this need for forecasting future conflicts. In an official statement about the national security of the Russian Federation, he stated:

In the Russian Federation, there is clearly a distinct and comprehensive approach to national security that encompasses several levels – from the top political node down to the armed forces. This approach involves monitoring and forecasting threats and dangers in the international sphere in order to identify and manage them before they manifest themselves. In certain situations, this enables Russian decision-makers to stop these threats by a pre-emptive attack. Importantly, this makes it plausible that in instances where the Russian Federation is using military power, it is not necessarily meant as a reaction to an existing threat, but as a precaution against a perceived future threat.

The Russian View on Modern Conflict and the Accompanying Threat Perception

Since forms of strategic forecasting are not exclusive to the Russian Federation but present in many countries’ strategic thinking, the question arises whether the Russian approach is noteworthy or not. The discussion above has shown the prominent and formalized position it occupies in Russia, and this section will illustrate the substantial and direct influence forecasting has had on Soviet and Russian threat perception. This includes how the German surprise attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 led to efforts to devise methods of pre-emptive action in the face of similar threats in the future. In this context, the Soviet and Russian emphasis on the period leading up to the outbreak of hostilities and the initial period of war is crucial in order to understand this approach of forecasting and pre-emption. Significantly, Russian strategic literature has emphasized the increased importance of non-military means in modern conflict. However, in the Russian view, non-military means are predominantly seen as tools for the achievement of a quick military victory rather than tools for the achievement of victory without a resort to armed force. As surprising as it might be, this is consistently evinced in Russian strategic literature.

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany unleashed a large surprise attack on the Soviet Union. The destruction and suffering that followed this attack have influenced the Soviet and Russian security elite ever since. In 1974, a book edited by General of the Army S. P. Ivanov, studying several historical cases including the 1941 German surprise attack, described how the initial period of war could be exploited. While (not surprisingly) it praised the Soviet Communist Party for its ability to defend the country, Ivanov used the words of Field Marshal G.K Zhukov, Chief of the Russian General Staff in the summer of 1941, to reveal the unpreparedness of the Soviet Union in the face of the German attack:

In other words, the Germans had fully prepared for war without corresponding preparations by the Soviets and were potentially able to reach decisive objectives before the Soviet Union could mobilize its full military potential. The trauma of this surprise attack has left a lasting impression on Russian strategic thinking.

Consequently, the fear of being again unprepared for war is fundamental both for the predictive approach described above and for a particular Russian view of full-scale war as the endpoint of an escalatory continuum between peace and war. The scientifically based forecasting method, described in the previous section, seeks to identify and monitor what are defined as dangers (opasnost’) and threats (ugroza) to national security before they materialize as military conflict. Consequently, this assumes a linear and escalatory view of conflict, in which a danger or threat that will later lead to an outbreak of war might be identified, monitored, and predicted beforehand. This is often misunderstood as a “distribution of measures” in Western discourse – that the range of conventional, irregular and non-military means acts as a “menu” from which Russian decision-makers may choose the most appropriate tool for the specific situation. Gerasimov’s speech of 2013, by many interpreted as a Russian approach of “exploiting” measures below the threshold of war, in fact describes this escalatory continuum, adjusted for the conditions of the modern world.

Figure 1, excerpted from the transcription of Gerasimov’s speech, is wrongly seen solely as an illustration of the importance of measures (non-military means in particular) below the threshold of war. It is intended, however, as an illustration of the development of a generic modern conflict. The whole speech of 2013 is framed as a warning – a warning that traditional forms of defense (predominantly regular military) will not be sufficient because the conflict starts to develop long before the actual outbreak of hostilities, and that these preparations are to a large extent conducted with non-military means. In other words, the danger for Russia, according to Gerasimov, is that Russia can lose a war before it starts because it did not pay attention to the measures taken by the opponent long before the outbreak of hostilities. Consequently, it is not the non-military measures, by themselves, that constitutes the very potent threat; it is how they can be used to set preconditions for a future war. In other words, by exploiting non-military means, an opponent can make the operational environment conducive for the introduction of regular forces at a later stage – and to such an extent that strategically decisive consequences for the outcome of the war may be settled even in the initial period.

Figure 1

Another important point, stated in this speech, is that the Russians see the West as the master of asymmetric approaches – not, as largely viewed in the West, an approach preferred by Russia, but, on the contrary, something perceived by the Russians as one of the primary threats to their national security.

Articles in Military Thought contain similar references to a covert threat from the West, constituted by non-military and irregular military means. For example, an article from 2014 described the origin, development and threat from so-called “color revolutions”. In relation to the social upheavals during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist block and later social unrest in the post-Soviet era, this article states that:

The article goes on to state that “all this indicates that those orchestrating such coups in modern conditions rely on a well-developed theory of so-called controlled chaos” (Bel’skiy & Klimenko, 2014, p. 3). It even points to concrete academic work in the West: the Santa Fe Institute, for example, a multi-disciplinary research institute specializing in chaos theory and complexity in systems, is mentioned as one of the sources for this new set of technologies (Bel’skiy & Klimenko, 2014, pp. 3–4). Accordingly, this article reveals a Russian perception of color revolutions, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the “Arab Spring”, and pro-Western social movements in the post-Soviet states, as orchestrated by outside powers (mainly the United States) and not an entirely domestic phenomenon (see also German, 2020). In that context, the works of Gene Sharp about nonviolent methods to overthrow dictatorships are also mentioned (Bel’skiy & Klimenko, 2014, p. 4). Several sources emphasize the Joint Vision 2020 document, published by the United States in 2000, as a confirmation of the Western strategy of triggering “color revolutions” (see, for example, Gerasimov, 2013; Kiselev & Vorob’yev, 2015).

As hybrid warfare became more frequently addressed in the West after 2014, it was picked up in Russian military theoretical literature. While this can perhaps be viewed as paradoxical, given the origin of the Western emphasis on hybrid modes of warfare lies largely in Russian actions in Ukraine from 2014, the term “hybrid warfare” is not originally a Russian construct; it was created in a Western context (Galeotti, 2018; Renz, 2016). As the deputy commander at the Military Academy of the Russian General Staff, Lieutenant-General A. V. Serzhantov, puts it:

In 2015, one of the first mentions of hybrid warfare in Russian literature was made in an article by Colonel V. A. Kiselev and Major-General I. N. Vorob’yev, the latter a renowned author on tactics in Russia. When discussing hybrid warfare as a new mode of warfare, they argued that:

While this article only warned of a potential Western use of hybrid warfare on non-Russian soil, another article, written in 2018 by Colonel A. A. Bartosh, who has published extensively on these matters, made clear that:

This threat description is echoed by statements by Gerasimov in 2019:

Consequently, Russian threat perception has evolved significantly from a general concern about non-military means to a specific view of the West as a threat. It was initially held, in the early 2010s, that non-military means were sufficiently potent to set the conditions for a quick military victory, or even that they could achieve results previously attainable only through the large-scale use of regular military force.

This perception of a Western “Trojan horse” strategy is also present in the Russian Military Doctrine and National Security Strategy, formal documents particularly important in synchronizing Russian state organs (see Russian Military Doctrine: RSI Primer, 2022). While there were mentions of the increased role of non-military means and subversive information operations in the Russian Military Doctrine of 2010, the descriptions of military dangers of this nature were vague (Voyennaya Doktrina, 2010, paras. 8b, 8l, 12a, 12 g). A new military doctrine, largely similar to the 2010 version, although including several novel elements, was published as early as December 2014. Two of the new “dangers” to Russian security were understood thus:

Additionally, one of the new characteristics of modern warfare, explained in the doctrine, was the “complex use of military force, political, economic, informational and other measures of non-military nature, implemented with the extensive use of the protest potential of the population and special operations forces” (Voyennaya Doktrina, 2014, para. 15a). Consequently, the 2010 doctrine had been updated to address international developments such as the “Arab Spring” and the “Euromaidan” uprising in Ukraine. The Russian interpretation of these events, and the accompanying threat perception, was that these events were not spontaneous and random but a result of external intervention and influence.

While the 2014 Military Doctrine was issued after what the Russians saw as extraordinary events, new military doctrines have traditionally been published every ten years. A draft military doctrine was made available in 1990, then new doctrines were published in 2000 and 2010, before the issue of the 2014 doctrine, which is the latest official doctrine at the time of writing. Following this pattern, a new doctrine would expectedly have been published in 2020. No such doctrine was published, however, despite increasing tensions between the Russian Federation and the West – a fact suggesting the existence either of a secret doctrine or of unofficial developments in the Russian perception of national security. A Russian national security strategy made public in 2021, however, might afford some insight into the evolution of Russian thinking since 2014. According to this document, the world had become a much more dangerous place for the Russian Federation. It states that the international situation is characterized by “the growth of geopolitical instability and conflict, and the strengthening of interstate contradictions that are accompanied by an increased threat of the use of military force“ (Ukaz Prezidenta, 2021, sec. 17). It goes on:

Compared to the 2014 Military Doctrine, the 2021 National Security Strategy is distinctly more specific and alarmist about the perceived threat from NATO and Western countries. While the West is not always named, it is clear from the context that it is the perceived origin of the threat. For example, one excerpt reads:

From the perspective of the Russian political leadership, the West poses an indirect and asymmetrical threat – foreign powers actively influencing and destabilizing Russian society. In the early 2000s, there was a general concern that modern technology might enable such strategies; by 2014, this concern had developed into a deeply rooted suspicion. The 2014 Military Doctrine reflects the belief that the West is waging a predominantly non-military subversive campaign against Russia, an interpretation that owes much to the Russian interpretation of the Arab Spring and the so-called color revolutions in the post-Soviet space. Finally, the 2021 National Security Strategy strongly indicates that the Russian political leadership had started to operate according to this threat perception in the late 2010s.

While these threat perceptions may be alien to Western readers, who may reject them as justifications for expansionist policies, they are perceived as an actuality for the Russian security elite. The key to understanding these discordant perceptions perhaps lies in the Russian experience of the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc. Today’s Russian security elite, who grew up in the Soviet Union and largely spent their formative years in the Soviet education system and security services, did not expect the sudden disintegration of their superpower. Additionally, the Russian Federation’s opening up to the West and its adoption of a Western democratic and liberal system in the 1990s prompted significant internal problems in the shape of economic recession, lawlessness, and the degradation of social structures. One might reasonably expect the Russian people from the generations that lived through the 1990s to see the West as the very embodiment of the era’s problems. The Russian threat perception, emphasizing the need for spiritual national defense, is largely driven by the fear that Western malign influence will recreate the chaotic and detrimental situation of the 1990s (see, for example, Giles, 2019, pp. 41–45).

As discussed above, the German surprise attack of 1941 retains tremendous significance to Russian strategic thinking. Whatever the connotation of a Russian ruler (autocratic, oligarchic or democratic), the avoidance of another 1941 remains a sacred duty. In their own eyes, today’s “Soviet” security elite of the Russian Federation, composed of individuals like V. V. Putin, N. P. Patrushev, S. B. Ivanov, and A. V. Bortnikov, failed in this sacred duty as the superpower collapsed in the early 1990s leaving the country dominated by the West (see Skak, 2016 for details on the Russian security elite). Today, this security elite is determined that no such fate should befall the Russian Federation.

The other principal threat in the Russian view is the massive use of long-range precision-strike weaponry. This is a long-standing area of study in Soviet and Russian military theory with its origin in the 1980s (McDermott & Bukkvoll, 2017). In 2013, a well-known article on the subject of future conflict published by Colonel S. G. Chekinov and Lt. General S. A. Bogdanov stated that a modern war would start with the massive use of long-range precision-strike weaponry, delivered from air and space, creating decisive effects already in the initial period of war (Chekinov & Bogdanov, 2013, pp. 19–20). Another article in Military Thought echoes this concern about possible U.S. use of long-range precision-strike weaponry. It emphasizes the importance of defending against long-range weapons in order to avoid having to rely on nuclear weapons alone. According to this article, the “most drastic and rational alternative for the unleashing of U.S. military action against Russia” is a “massive surprise missile-aviation strike as part of an initial offensive air operation” (Poletayev & Alferov, 2015, p. 3). Similar to Chekinov and Bogdanov’s article, the combination of long-range precision-strike weaponry and subversive approaches is held to be particularly dangerous:

Consequently, it is the combination of subversive activities and long-range precision-strike weaponry that constitutes a very dangerous threat. NATO’s increased capabilities in conventional long-range precision-strike weaponry and ballistic missile defense systems, and their deployment closer to the borders of the Russian Federation, are entirely central to the potency of this perceived threat.

Russian Countermeasures and the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine

To counter threats from the West, the Russians have devised several countermeasures. It is a common misconception that the Russian description of Western hybrid threats is in reality a description of their own approach. On the contrary: countermeasures found in Russian strategic literature are distinctly different and not much described in Western literature.

The development of Russian countermeasures can be divided into three phases, largely coinciding with the development of their threat perception. Firstly, the period up until approximately 2016 saw an emphasis on defense against subversive activities; secondly, a period of transformation between 2016 and 2017 involved an effort to devise countermeasures based on combining all the state’s resources and capabilities into a military operation, largely illustrated by the so-called interdepartmental groups of forces (mezhvedomstvennaya gruppirovka voysk (sil)); the final phase, from approximately 2017 until the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was characterized by explicit discussions on how to counter Western hybrid threats, including the pre-emptive and offensive use of regular forces to seize and control territory. These countermeasures were organized in a conceptualization dubbed “active defense” (aktivnaya oborona). As the following discussion will show, the tandem development of the Russian threat perception and the corresponding countermeasures was to culminate in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

As the threat perception of large-scale subversive information operations embodied in the concept of “color revolutions” grew in the first half of the 2010s, the discussion in Russian strategic literature showed an emphasis on viable countermeasures. One central article from 2014, noting the vulnerability of the younger generation, growing up in modern conditions and under the influence of the West, states:

• To develop a unifying idea of the CSTO taking into account the common national interests of the member states, since ideology permeates all structures and spheres of society. Based on this idea (ideology), society will undergo a radical restructuring of all spheres of social life on the basis of moral values. …

• To develop a strategy for the patriotic, moral and spiritual education of the youth of the CSTO member states. It is this approach that will contribute to spiritual and cultural improvement, strengthening the defense capability of the participating states and achieving their social and economic stability. (Bel’skiy & Klimenko, 2014, p. 7)

Another article shows the importance of “patriotic history” in Russian countermeasures against perceived Western influence:

The threat that effective information operations pose towards what the Russians call the “moral-psychological state” of the armed forces is emphasized (see Puzen’kin & Mikhaylov, 2015). Terms such as information struggle (informatsionnoye protivoborstvo) are largely seen in a military context, in which “war” or “armed conflict” are often defined as the final and dangerous outcome. In this context, the Russians sees the combination of information operations with regular military force as particularly dangerous. An article from 2015 elaborates:

The next phase in Russia’s development of countermeasures took place in roughly the years 2016–2017. In this period, the previous conclusions that national security involved the protection of Russian society from malign Western influence is taken a step further. It now involves conceptualizing the combination of military force and non-military measures into fielded groups of forces. As Chekinov and Bogdanov noted in 2017 when describing the new type of warfare: “But no war can be won while being unarmed. This means we need to arm ourselves, strengthen the defense capability of the state, and increase the combat capability of the Armed Forces” (Chekinov & Bogdanov, 2017, p. 42). In other words, military and non-military means cannot be viewed in isolation when facing the asymmetric threat from the West.

In another article published by Chekinov and Bogdanov in 2016, this is stated clearly:

This “multilateral” approach is often conceptualized either as a joint (mezhvidovoy) or so-called interdepartmental (mezhvedomstvennoy) groups of forces in the strategic literature in this period. The interdepartmental group of forces is mentioned in an article by Colonel-General S. V. Surovikin and Colonel Yu. V. Kuleshov, describing how such a joint or interdepartmental group of forces is to be integrated into a common information space (Surovikin & Kuleshov, 2017, p. 8). Gerasimov also emphasizes the interdepartmental integration at the strategic level in a speech from 2017 (Gerasimov, 2017, p. 12). Finally, Major-General V. K. Kopytko states:

Discussion of the pre-emptive use of joint or interdepartmental groups of forces began to emerge in the strategic literature in this period. In 2016, Major-General V. V. Kruglov emphasized the importance of linking the results of strategic forecasting to pre-emptive actions (Kruglov, 2016). In his conclusion, he argued:

Finally, according to Kruglov, this approach must be combined with specific planning and conduct of operational exercises in order to prepare for these pre-emptive operations (Kruglov, 2016, p. 38). Interestingly, systematic use of large-scale exercises, preparing for contingency situations, is a characteristic of the Russian way of warfare (see Osflaten, 2021, pp. 124–127). Consequently, the emphasis on defense against subversive actions in the previous phase was developed further and concretized into potential use of joint, or even interdepartmental, groups of forces in pre-emptive operations.

The third and final phase of the Russian development of countermeasures was, as we shall see, targeted at an explicitly defined Western threat and was based on pre-emption, largely by military force. In 2018, Bartosh was already writing that:

In other words, the perceived threat of hybrid warfare from the West had taken on an even more tangible and existential value, demanding even more drastic countermeasures. These countermeasures relied heavily on regular military force, as indicated in the quote above, and several articles elaborated on this; an article about territorial defense, for example, argues:

Describing countermeasures against Western hybrid warfare, another article argues that Russian ground forces must be able to fight both in special operations and large-scale warfare. However, the article continues to argue that the West’s economic superiority, and thus higher military potential, requires Russia to look for asymmetric countermeasures. “The most widespread asymmetric strategies of a militarily weak side,” it argues, “include direct active defense and partisan warfare” (Brychkov et al., 2019, p. 21). The article defines “direct active defense”:

Simultaneously, the article states that the preconditions necessary for the other asymmetric approach, the “strategy of partisan warfare”, are that “the terrain must be inaccessible” to some degree for the stronger party and there must be “support from the local population” (Brychkov et al., 2019, p. 22). Neither preconditions could be expected in Ukraine in 2022, and the opponent the Russians were likely trying to pre-empt was not the Ukrainians but the West. Consequently, it is the “direct active defense” approach, later referred to merely as “active defense”, that formed the principal influence of the Russians’ invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Essentially, in this phase Russian threat perception can be largely reduced to a Western strategy of the “Trojan Horse”, and their principal countermeasure to it: the strategy of ‘active defense’. Elaborating on how military force should be used to support the active defense strategy, Serzhantov points to these two concepts in an article of 2019:

The active defense strategy is echoed in a speech Gerasimov made in 2019, addressing the Academy of Military Sciences:

When developing this active defense strategy further, Gerasimov points to Russian experience gained in the Syrian Civil War and states that it is necessary to “execute tasks to protect and promote national interests outside the territory of Russia within the framework of a ‘strategy of limited actions’” (Gerasimov, 2019). He continues:

Accordingly, the Russians saw the need to act pre-emptively outside of their borders also, in order to ensure national security. While this strategy of “active defense” has been previously described in Western literature (see, for example, Kofman et al., 2021, pp. 10–17), it becomes a persuasive explanation for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine when seen in combination with the previous development in Russian military art. At the end of the 2010s, the use of joint or interdepartmental groups of forces in pre-emptive operations had become one of the major elements of Russian strategic literature (see, for example, Voskresenskiy, 2020). Consequently, there are strong indications that Russian strategic forecasting supported a strategy of “active defense” aimed at pre-empting Western influence, and that this pre-emption was envisioned to be conducted by interdepartmental groups of forces, acting outside the borders of the Russian Federation if necessary.

Finally, even, connections between a Western threat and pre-emption in Ukraine were explicitly made in Russian strategic literature immediately before the full-scale invasion. An article by Bartosh, apparently written before the invasion of 2022 but published immediately after, makes the point that a defense of Russia must be pre-emptive and offensive:

This strategy would naturally include Ukraine; in 2018, Bartosh wrote that “the skillful use of Ukraine in the hybrid war of the collective West against Russia indicates the extremely destructive potential and danger of non-linear conflicts, the counteraction of which requires a decisive and quick reaction” (Bartosh, 2018b, p. 13).

In January 2022, a month before the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Colonel-General V. P. Baranov wrote an article that pointed towards what were, from the Russian perspective, grave and urgent trends in Ukraine. Firstly, the Minsk-agreement had failed in implementing a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Donbas (Baranov, 2022, pp. 81–82). Secondly, the article noted that there had been increasingly anti-Russian rhetoric in Ukraine, made by figures as prominent as President Volodymyr Zelensky and Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Valerii Zaluzhnyi (Baranov, 2022, p. 84). Thirdly, Ukraine was receiving substantial military aid from the United States and other NATO allies, including support for comprehensive reforms in the country’s armed forces, and this aid was ramped up in the years leading up to 2022. Finally, Ukraine was seen to be gradually integrating with NATO, facilitating interoperation with NATO forces (Baranov, 2022, pp. 82–84).

In relation to this interoperability, the extent of multinational exercises involving Ukraine and one or more NATO allies conducted through 2021 was especially concerning. According to Baranov:

As exercises are an important part of Russian pre-war operational art, it is no surprise that the Russians attach such significance to them. Another interesting point about this article is that there exists no illusion about the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces. Baranov lists the Ukrainian land forces in 2018 as comprised of 16 mechanized brigades, 4 infantry brigades, 7 tank brigades, 2 naval infantry brigades, 1 paratrooper brigade, 6 air assault brigades, 25 territorial defense brigades, 1 ballistic missile brigade, 2 MLRS brigades, 2 MLRS regiments, and 8 artillery brigades, in addition to aviation, air, naval and special forces units (Baranov, 2022, p. 79). Combining the Russian tradition of monitoring the international situation in order to recognize emerging threats, often with mathematical methods, and their stated strategy of active pre-emption with military force, events in 2021 could very well have set off the Russian forecasting system and triggered the invasion. If the assumptions within the Russian General Staff were anything similar to Baranov’s conclusion, this is an entirely plausible inference. Baranov concludes his article:

This thus indicates that when a Russian interdepartmental group of forces entered Ukraine in a “special military operation“ on February 24, 2022, it was to pre-empt what they perceived to be an imminent threat from the collective West, which would drastically aggravate Russian national security.

Implications for the Future

The Soviet and Russian emphasis on forecasting, pre-emption and strategic surprise is not new (Fasola, 2023; Osflaten, 2024; Yüksel, 2023). It can be argued that these elements were conspicuous in the lead-up to both the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and the 2014 invasion of Crimea, for example. While a detailed analysis about their causes and characteristics is beyond the scope of this article, these operations largely followed a similar pattern to the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, despite their more limited scopes and objectives. This implies that the approach chosen in the 2022 invasion was part of a broader pattern in the Russian use of military force. Additionally, as demonstrated above, the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022 was at least partially the result of a long development in Russian threat perception, incorporating the idea of stopping a Western threat before it became unmanageable. This threat perception pointed to Western use of “color revolutions”, potentially combined with long-range precision-strike weaponry perceived to pose an existential threat to Russia. Thus, according to this argument, the Russian reliance on strategic forecasting, enabling prediction and thus pre-emption of future threats, prompted them to invade Ukraine while Western influence was manageable.

Elias Götz and Per Ekman have presented three general categories of causes for the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Putin’s imperial ambitions; a requirement for regime preservation; and balancing and blocking Western power (Götz & Ekman, 2024). As such, this article’s argument is in clear concordance with the latter category. But as Götz and Ekman warn, however, “explanations focusing on a single factor fall short of providing convincing accounts” (Götz & Ekman, 2024, p. 201). Nevertheless, this article offers, at a minimum, the potential to challenge some existing assumptions about the causes leading to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For example, according to Russian threat perception in their domestic strategic literature, Russian statements portraying the Ukrainians as “Nazis” or the Ukrainian nation as a false construct seem more likely to be instrumental for propaganda purposes than a genuine cause for the invasion. Secondly, the Russian justification for the invasion as presented in this article indicates that the invasion was launched despite high risks – not on account of any underestimation of the Ukrainian will and capacity to defend itself. In other words, the Kremlin was aware that there was a substantial risk of failure but assessed the consequences of not invading as more severe. This perspective deserves, at least, further examination.

Consequently, given the Russian threat perception, the West and the Russian Federation are locked into a long-term conflict in which the Ukraine War is just one part. In this conflict, there is a risk of escalation to both world war and the use of nuclear weapons. If the Russians see war with NATO as highly likely or unavoidable, there is a possibility that they will seek to attack pre-emptively in order to seize the strategic initiative and establish favorable positions before the conflict escalates to nuclear warfare or a cease-fire can be attained. While such a scenario will be of limited scale – the Russian Federation can have no prospect of winning a protracted conventional war against NATO – it will most likely come with minimal warning. Ceasing to support Ukraine through the supply of arms, however, thwarting its capacity to withstand the Russian invasion, is not a viable alternative. Likely the most dangerous outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War is a Ukrainian military collapse. This will create an extremely unstable and volatile situation which may lead to unilateral intervention from NATO countries; misinterpretations from either side in a very chaotic, dynamic, and uncertain situation; and the possibility of Ukrainian provocations to secure NATO’s direct involvement.

As a final note, this article has argued that the Russian threat perception, leading to the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was founded on concerns of Western hybrid warfare in the form of subversive influence, considered to constitute a potentially existential threat to the state. While the Russian presumption of such a Western threat may perhaps seem difficult to believe, it is a direct consequence of their system of scientifically based forecasting: if you look hard for indicators of a hostile design, you will probably find some. An interesting paradox is that the West and Russia have similar threat perceptions (hybrid warfare) and countermeasures (information defense and the coordination between all parts of society). This may allude to deeper and more fundamental psychological mechanisms at play. These mechanisms seem to increase our inclination to believe that “under the surface” and unbeknownst to us, there are sinister and hostile forces at play that can largely explain negative trends in our own society. This surely warrants further research.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.