Former Russian President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev declared in late July that “Our common task is to preserve our country. The only way to preserve our country is victory in the special military operation.” Victory has been officially described by the authorities from Putin on down as demilitarizing Ukraine, denazifying it, restoring the country’s constitutional neutrality, and having Kiev officially recognize the loss of five regions in full.
Maximum victory would be the best way to ensure Russia’s comprehensive national interests, but even in the scenario that the aforesaid goals aren’t all achieved by the time that the conflict ends per a speculative cost-benefit calculation by Putin, Russia would likely still survive. This scenario can’t be ruled due to the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently reaffirming his country’s commitment to the “Spirit of Anchorage” in which Putin would reportedly cease hostilities if Trump gets Zelensky to cede Donbass.
The West’s (specifically the US’ and France’s) new Ukrainian-fronted “war of attrition” against Russia, which also targets civilian logistical infrastructure and is due to Trump “escalating to de-escalate” with Russia, could also change Putin’s calculations if it radically intensifies. The aforesaid factors are being shared not to imply that Russia should compromise on its pursuit of maximum victory, just to highlight why it might, thus leading to the thought exercise inspired by Medvedev’s remark.
In the event that Ukraine remains militarized, isn’t denazified, doesn’t restore its constitutional neutrality, and/or refuses to officially recognize the loss of five regions in full by the time that the conflict ends, then Russia would likely still survive for the reasons that’ll now be briefly enumerated. In the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine’s continued militarization would prompt Russia to keep pace just like NATO’s (and especially Germany’s) continued militarization would too, thus perpetuating their arms race.
Post-“Maidan” Ukraine’s preservation as a Nazi state would compel Russia to redouble its pre-bunking, media literacy, and “Democratic Security” policies and continue fine-tuning its interethnic one to defend against the ideational threats that this would pose. Merging the cultures of the military and society like former top Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov earlier suggested would help too. The threat posed by Ukraine’s lack of neutrality, meanwhile, could be countered by Russia’s Sarmat ICBMs to deter NATO deployments.
And finally, the humanitarian consequences of Kiev maintaining control over part of the disputed territories could be reduced by a third party-mediated deal allowing interested residents to migrate to Russia, but even the lack thereof would have no existential consequences for Russia. What’s altogether most important in this thought exercise, which resembles the scenario implied by top Russian expert Vasily Kashin in late May, is that Russia keeps pace in the arms race and that its people remain resilient.
Even if Russia achieved maximum victory, the US has already built a loose “cordon sanitaire” around it in the Arctic-Baltic through UK-led efforts, Central Europe through Polish-led efforts, along Russia’s entire southern periphery through Turkish-led efforts, and in Northeast Asia through Japanese-led efforts. This poses a panoply of threats beyond the scope of the present analysis to detail, but which lend credence to Bezrukov’s warning that Russia might be embroiled in its “new war” with the West for decades.
