'Revanchist, but not suicide': former CIA agents tried to guess what Putin wants from Ukraine

The looming threat of a new Russian military invasion of Ukraine has brought the world to the brink, and the intense diplomatic maneuvering of the administration of US President Joe Biden and its European allies has so far failed to bring Moscow out of a war-ready state. Edition Yahoo! said that, according to leading experts who worked in intelligence and national security of the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants from Ukraine.

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For months, Russia has been amassing troops and equipment near its borders with Ukraine, with some units even arriving from Siberia. The Russian Federation recently began large-scale military exercises with its ally Belarus, which borders Ukraine. Now Ukraine is surrounded by more than 100 Russian troops.

Although Russia announced it was withdrawing some troops from the border with Ukraine, Biden said the United States had not independently verified Moscow's claims and stressed that a new Russian invasion was "still likely."

This is not the first time Russia under President Vladimir Putin has threatened Ukraine's sovereignty. In 2014, Russia invaded and later annexed Ukraine's strategically located Crimean peninsula and supports pro-Russian forces in Donbas.

Given the high cost of a Russian invasion, experts believe it will be a bloody conflict that will isolate Moscow diplomatically and economically — many Americans wonder why Putin has decided to launch another invasion.

The reporters spoke to some of the leading experts in US intelligence and national security to learn their assessments of Putin's motivations for potentially launching this new invasion, as well as broader Russian and regional politics.

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These former officials offered a variety of explanations for Putin's motives. Some see in his actions an undisguised game for regional dominance or power. Others see them as the result of a desire to regain territories lost at the end of the Cold War, or a desire to recreate the Russian Empire. Still others see Putin's actions as a response to his fears - rational or not - of a NATO invasion or of being overthrown in a popular revolution that could lead to execution.

KGB officer

Greg Sims, former CIA chief of station with experience in Europe - in the first person.

I can't imagine that Putin really wants to invade. He is a KGB officer who is more comfortable with subterfuge than brute military force. He tried to manipulate the elections, corrupt, exert economic pressure and, finally, carried out disguised military attacks.

Each step was more manipulative than the last. A truly independent Ukraine was never an option for him, and now he is left with only three options: take Ukraine at once, cut off big chunks, or give it up. He must blame himself for this situation because the only thing he hasn't tried is being a good neighbor.

"He wants to restore Russia"

Ronald Marks, a former CIA officer with experience in Russia - in the first person.

Putin is a revanchist, but not a suicide. It is reminiscent of a Roman emperor named Justinian after the Roman Empire fell in the west. And 100 years after that, Justinian took it into his head to recapture the Roman Empire. This is what Putin has in mind - he wants to restore Russia (within the borders of the empire or the USSR). But he cannot make huge sacrifices.

And he decided to show his strength inside the country. His voters are inside and he needs to leave a legacy. He wants to be known as the man who recreated and to some extent moved Russia forward in the world.

In many ways, he's just the world's meanest teenager and really knows how to push buttons. And he knows how far he can go.

Fear of the "Gaddafi scenario"

Michael van Landingham, former CIA Russia analyst, in the first person.

I think that Putin's current actions are mainly related to Libya and the so-called Arab Spring - and the election of President Barack Obama. So Obama was elected on an anti-war platform, he's an anti-war candidate, he was elected in part because he proposed a reset with Russia. This reset partly materialized with Putin's chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev. But when the Arab Spring began, Putin and his advisers were real hardliners and really believed that the US, if left unchecked, would try to eliminate Russia and take back Siberia.

So Putin saw what he thought was a return to the model of the US taking advantage of Russia, which essentially means imposing political priorities that Russia must accept.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was a kind of personification of Putin's fears of being shot in a ditch, which happened to Gaddafi. And this happened during the presidency of an anti-war liberal, but whose political environment consisted of people who believed that promoting democracy and preventing deaths in the name of human rights was worth humanitarian intervention.

Thus, Putin feared that the United States would use military force to overthrow autocratic governments if a popular uprising broke out against them. And Libya has been a model for Putin and the hardliners.

We knew that his goal was to make Ukraine ineligible for NATO membership by accepting part of it. Because it is impossible to accept a new state as a member while it is in an armed conflict. But in reality, the hardliners were in favor of taking over all of eastern Ukraine, going all the way to Odessa and on to Transnistria.

The only way to achieve the political goal pursued by Russia, namely a defenseless Ukraine that Russia can veto in foreign policy, is to use Russian force. In 2015, they received Minsk-2 (a diplomatic agreement that tried to lay the groundwork for ending the war in eastern Ukraine) that they thought would help implement the plan. But by taking Crimea and eastern Ukraine, going to war with the Ukrainians, he pushed Ukraine even closer to Europe because he started killing people.

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Why not invade Ukraine now? Because the future will be more difficult. In his country, a million people have died from COVID-19, and he faces re-election in 2024 (if elected).

He cares about safety. If your goal is to prevent your state from being taken over by the West, so that there is no nuclear war with the West, and so that you do not get shot in a ditch, you are ready to do much more than any other person to secure your regime. And this is his goal - not to repeat the fate of Gaddafi.

And many people would say, "How could anyone think that this could happen to them?" It happened to Mussolini, it happened to Ceausescu. Sic semper tyrannis ("so always with tyrants").

"Burn Their House Down"

Dan Hoffman, former CIA chief of station in Moscow - in the first person.

First, NATO membership is a fig leaf. This is a distraction. Everyone knows that Ukraine will not join NATO in the near future. Unanimous consent required; France and Germany do not give it yet. Putin uses this as a convenient way to formulate a narrative for his disinformation propaganda. NATO is a defensive alliance, but it represents everything that scares it.

What he is trying to do with Ukraine is not to deprive her of NATO membership, but to sever Ukraine's ties with the West.

First, it affects economically, and the risk of war and capital flight make Ukraine not a good place to invest.

Secondly, he is trying to destabilize Ukraine politically, internally. So, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is getting the worst polling scores of his term, and Putin wants to show that Ukraine's elected leader is not up to the task of dealing with the threat from Russia.

Third, he is trying to use the Donbass to veto Ukraine's foreign policy. And here we come to what he is doing right now, namely to extort something from the USA and the West. All his actions are designed to raise tensions and encourage countries to make concessions.

Incidentally, he himself made no concessions. He was offered to resume arms control talks, he was offered access to Aegis air defenses, and the Ukrainian ambassador in London even suggested Ukraine's possible refusal to join NATO, although this is spelled out in the Constitution. They offer Putin, offer, offer, and Russia says: "We need more."

"Just a bully"

Chris Miller, former acting head of the Department of Defense (2020-2021) - POV.

Putin's motivation is a big unknown, but I don't think it's that hard. Putin is just a damn bully. And everything you need to know about him, if you've spent any time on the high school playground, then this is familiar to you. I really think it's deeply rooted in his psyche.

In my opinion, he will just continue to push until someone stands up against him, like that bully on the court.

"A Desperate Attempt to Reclaim the Empire"

Paul Zaluki, a former high-ranking CIA officer who served in Kiev and Warsaw - in the first person.

If they stop insisting that Kiev was a Russian city (which it isn't), Russia ceases to exist as a global power. It's just another country, and if you look at their gross domestic product, which, for example, is less than Italy's, they have nothing but nuclear weapons.

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The only factor that speaks in favor of Putin going in full force is a desperate attempt to reclaim the empire, not so much the Soviet Union, but the Russian empire - what Peter the Great had. And I think that the Baltic countries are also part of this mission, but not immediately.

“Putin has already done this twice with no real consequences”

Josh Manning, former military and foreign policy analyst for Russia at the US European Command - in the first person.

Back in 2008, some of us foresaw the approach of a Russian invasion of Georgia. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili really tried his luck. He thought the US would be there to help him, but that didn't happen. Did it need to be done? I did not think so at the time, although the consequences of the invasion must have been much more serious. But Iraq, and by that time Afghanistan to a lesser extent, were then the focus of US attention.

Then in 2014 there was an invasion of Ukraine. The same goals as for Georgia, and the same result achieved. Again, the focus was on the Middle East, now Yemen and the Horn of Africa, so Russia-related issues were not the focus or priority.

So Putin did the same thing twice without any real consequences.

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