Russia’s options short of invasion
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be preparing to launch an invasion of Ukraine, with more than 100,000 troops positioned around the country. Certainly, the U.S. believes that’s the case, and President Joe Biden has warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that an attack could come in February. But Russia denies it’s preparing to invade, and Putin’s intentions remain a mystery. Russia, which is seeking a pledge that NATO won’t expand to include Ukraine, has options it could pursue short of a full-blown invasion, and other ways to lash out at the U.S. and its allies. All of them carry varying degrees of risk, to Russia and the world. A look at some of them:
Something short of a full-scale invasion
In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. That year it also started arming rebels in the eastern region known as the Donbas, starting a low-boiling conflict that has killed more than 14,000 people. Many Russia watchers speculate that the recent buildup of Russian troops and naval forces is the next chapter in a larger effort to chip away at Ukraine, perhaps taking advantage as the U.S. and its allies in Europe are distracted by COVID-19 and other issues. Possible scenarios include providing additional support to the Russia-backed rebels or launching a limited invasion, just enough to destabilize Zelenskyy and usher in a pro-Kremlin leader.
Stopping short of a full-scale invasion would give Russia more time to get more forces in place and test the commitment of the U.S. and its allies to the punishing sanctions promised by Biden, says retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe. “He’s going to continue doing what he’s doing right now, continuing to apply maximum pressure on Ukraine and to try to destabilize the government to alarm people,” Hodges said. “There’s a lot of capability in place to do more, should the opportunity present itself.”
That might still end up triggering sanctions that could damage the Russian economy and hurt Putin at home. There’s also the risk that a limited action isn’t enough to achieve the Russian president’s goal of undermining European security by rolling back, or at least halting, NATO expansion, says Dmitry Gorenburg, an analyst with CNA, a research organization in Arlington, Virginia. “I don’t think it gets him what he wants,” he said. “It didn’t get them that before. So why now?”
Economic warfare
Russia is a major player in global energy, the third-largest oil producer after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, and the source of about 40% of the natural gas used in Europe. It is also a major exporter of wheat, particularly to developing nations. Any move to cut the flow of energy could be painful to Europe in winter with gas and oil prices already high. Similarly, rising food prices are a problem around the world.
Putin has some economic leverage, but there’s no indication he would use it, and it could end up hurting Russia in the long run, says Edward Fishman, a former State Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Any move by Russia to cut off gas shipments would push European nations to find alternative sources for the future. “It’s a weapon you can only use once,” he said. “You do that once and you lose that leverage forever.” The Biden administration is already working with Qatar and other suppliers to replace Russian gas if needed.
Cyberattacks
There’s no doubt Russia has the capability to conduct significant cyberattacks in Ukraine and around the world, and would almost certainly do so again as part of any operation against its neighbor.
The risk to the world is that hostile activity against Ukraine could spread, as the cyberattack known as notPetya did to devastating effect in 2017. The downside to Russia is the U.S. and other nations have the power to retaliate, as Biden warned Putin in June. “He knows there are consequences,” Biden said.
The China factor
China isn’t a direct player in the standoff over Ukraine, but it plays a role. Observers have warned that Moscow could respond to Washington’s rejection of its security demands by bolstering military ties with China. Russia and China have held a series of joint war games, including naval drills and patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.
One theory among Russia watchers is that China is intently following the U.S. and European response over Ukraine to gauge what might happen if it were to move against Taiwan. Hodges sees that as a risk. “If we, with our combined diplomatic and economic power plus military power, cannot stop the president of the Russian Federation from doing something that is so obviously illegal and wrong and aggressive, then I don’t think President Xi is going to be too impressed with anything that we say about Taiwan or the South China Sea.”
A Russian buildup in Latin America
Senior Russian officials have warned that Moscow could deploy troops or military assets to Cuba and Venezuela. The threats are vague, though Russia does have close ties to both countries as well as Nicaragua. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan dismissed the idea.
A more likely scenario is that Russia steps up its already extensive propaganda efforts to sharpen divisions in Latin America and elsewhere, including the United States.
A diplomatic solution
It’s not a foregone conclusion that the standoff ends in an invasion. While the Biden administration said it would not concede to Russia’s security demands, there still seems to be some room for diplomacy.
France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia have agreed to sit down for talks in two weeks, an effort aimed at reviving a 2015 agreement to ease the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
A stand-down may be good for the world but could come at a cost for Putin, Russian journalist Yulia Latynina warned in a New York Times essay on Friday. She said the Russian president may have used his troop buildup as a bluff, hoping to compel the U.S. and Europe to relinquish any intention of closer ties to Ukraine. “Instead of trapping the United States, Mr. Putin has trapped himself,” she wrote. “Caught between armed conflict and a humiliating retreat, he is now seeing his room for maneuver dwindling to nothing.”
For weeks, the school principal had been imploring Kemika Cosey: Would she please allow her children, ages 7 and 11, to get COVID shots?
Cosey remained firm. A hard no.
But “Mr. Kip” — Brigham Kiplinger, principal of Garrison Elementary School in Washington, D.C. — swatted away the “no.”
Since the federal govern- ment authorized the coronavirus vaccine for children ages 5-11 nearly three months ago, Kiplinger has been calling the school’s parents, texting, nagging and cajoling daily. Acting as a vaccine advocate — a job usually handled by medical profes- sionals and public health officials — has become cen- tral to his role as an edu- cator. “The vaccine is the most important thing hap- pening this year to keep kids in school,” Kiplinger said.
Largely through Kiplinger’s skill as a parent vax whisperer, Garrison Elemen- tary has turned into a pub- lic health anomaly: Of the 250 Garrison Wildcats in kindergarten through fifth grade, 80% have had at least one shot, he said.
But as the omicron variant has stormed through U.S. classrooms, sending students home and, in some cases, to the hospital, the rate of vaccination overall for America’s 28 million chil- dren ages 5-11 remains even lower than health experts had feared. According to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation based on federal data, only 18.8% are fully vaccinated and 28.1% have received one dose.
The disparity of rates among states is stark. In Vermont, the share of children who are fully vaccinated is 52%; in Mississippi, it is 6%.
“It’s going to be a long slog at this point to get the kids vaccinated,” said Jennifer Kates, a senior vice president at Kaiser who specializes in global health policy. She says it will take unwavering persistence like that of Kiplinger, whom she knows firsthand because her child attends his school. “It’s hard, hard work to reach parents.”
After the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized for younger children in late Octo- ber, the out-of-the-gate surge in demand lasted a scant few weeks. It peaked just before Thanksgiving, then dropped precipitously and has since stalled. It hovers at 50,000 to 75,000 new doses a day.
“I was surprised at how quickly the interest in the vaccine for kids petered out,” Kates said. “Even parents who had been vaccinated themselves were more cautious about getting their kids vaccinated.”
Public health officials say that persuading parents to get their younger children vaccinated is crucial not only to sustaining in-person edu- cation but also to containing the pandemic overall. With adult vaccination hitting a ceiling — 74% of Americans ages 18 and older are fully vaccinated, and most of those who aren’t seem increasingly immovable — unvaccinated elementary school children remain a large, turbulent source of spread. Traveling to and from school on buses, traversing school hallways, bathrooms, classrooms and gyms, they can unknowingly act as viral vectors countless times a day.
Despite the proliferation of COVID-crowded hospi- tals, sick children and the highly contagious aspect of omicron, many parents — still swayed by last year’s surges that were generally not as rough on children as adults — do not believe the virus is dangerous enough to warrant risking their child’s health on a novel vaccine.
Health communication experts additionally blame that view on the early muddled messaging around omicron, which was initially described as “mild” but also as a variant that could pierce a vaccine’s protection.
Many parents interpreted those messages to mean that the shots served little pur- pose. In fact, the vaccines have been shown to strongly protect against severe illness and death, although they are not as effective in preventing infections with omicron as with other variants.
And caseloads of children in whom COVID has been diagnosed only keep rising, as a report last week from the American Academy of Pedi- atrics underscores. Dr. Moira Szilagyi, the academy’s pres- ident, pressed for greater rates of vaccination, saying, “After nearly two years of this pandemic, we know that this disease has not always been mild in children, and we’ve seen some kids suffer severe illness, both in the short term and in the long term.”
Recognizing the urgency, proponents of COVID shots are redoubling their efforts to convince parents. The American Academy of Pediatrics has put together talking points for pediatricians and parents. Kaiser has its own parent-friendly vaccine-infor- mation site. Patsy Stinchfield, a nurse-practitioner who is the incoming president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, keeps up an exhaustive speaking schedule, answering COVID vaccine questions from par- ents, teenagers, pediatricians and radio talk show hosts.
Cosey, the Garrison parent who staunchly resisted Kiplinger’s entreaties for weeks, had worried that the vaccine could exacerbate her son’s many allergies. “It took me a little minute to do a lot more research,” she said.
Earlier this month, she took both children to a school clinic. Yes, her pediatrician had encouraged her, but she also gives credit to Kiplinger. She laughed. Her fifth grader has been at Garrison since kindergarten. “Mr. Kip is more like family, so when I say he was nagging, it’s a good nag,” she said.
At the clinic, “Mr. Kip took a million pictures,” she added. “He was just super excited that I decided to come in.”