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A woman walks towards the only crossing right now between the rest of Ukraine and the northernmost occupied territory, manned by guards on both sides who check documents in Stanytsia Luhanska. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A woman walks towards the only crossing right now between the rest of Ukraine and the northernmost occupied territory, manned by guards on both sides who check documents in Stanytsia Luhanska.

DONBAS, Ukraine An estimated 100,000 Russian troops are amassed at the border of Ukraine, surrounding the country from three sides like a horseshoe. The bulk of those troops are to the far east, hard up against the Russian border. It's an area of the country called Donbas, where life has already been turned upside down by war with Russia.

Tensions have been simmering there since 2014, when Russia-backed separatists moved in and declared breakaway republics. They have been fighting ever since.

Now, people here face the prospect of being caught in the middle of what the White House is warning could be the largest invasion since World War II.

To get to Donbas, we hop a highspeed train from Kyiv. Our journey takes us past vast grain fields and flat stretches of land, covered in deep, deep snow. The area is known for coal mining and farming although these days, it's mostly known for conflict.

Our first stop is Slovyansk, a small city that was overtaken by separatists in 2014. It was the first city they took, and they held it for three months before the Ukrainian army came in and took it back. The fighting was fierce.

The Kyiv train station in January. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

The Kyiv train station in January.

Trees reflected in a window on a train from Kyiv to Slovyansk. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Trees reflected in a window on a train from Kyiv to Slovyansk.

People exit the train at a station on the way to Slovyansk. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

People exit the train at a station on the way to Slovyansk.

A man walks through a tunnel with street art in Slovyansk, a small city that was overtaken by separatists in 2014. It was the first city they took, and they held it for three months before the Ukrainian army came in and took it back. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A man walks through a tunnel with street art in Slovyansk, a small city that was overtaken by separatists in 2014. It was the first city they took, and they held it for three months before the Ukrainian army came in and took it back.

Vitalii Milko (left) stands with his wife Vita, their daughter Milana, 4, and a stray dog in the central square in Slovyansk. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Vitalii Milko (left) stands with his wife Vita, their daughter Milana, 4, and a stray dog in the central square in Slovyansk.

We meet Vita Milko, 41, who is out with her husband watching their young daughter play in the snow. She tells us she's proud to be Ukrainian, and she knows how close her life was to completely changing had the separatists not been run out eight years ago.

"I try not to think about it," she says, looking at her daughter. "I'm happy this city was freed. I would like all other cities to be freed as well."

Those "other cities" Vita is talking about lie even farther east. The Kyiv government calls them "temporarily occupied territories." The territories were seized in 2014, just like Slovyansk, but the Ukraine army never won them back. Russia has never formally annexed them, either. So the people who live there are in limbo cut off from Ukraine, cut off from Russia, cut off from the world.

The central square in Slovyansk where a statue of Lenin was removed in 2015. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

The central square in Slovyansk where a statue of Lenin was removed in 2015.

Left: A kiosk at night in Slovyansk. Right: Flowers pressed against the window of a florist in Slovyansk. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Left: A kiosk at night in Slovyansk. Right: Flowers pressed against the window of a florist in Slovyansk.

A shop that sells food and drinks outside the train station in Slovyansk. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A shop that sells food and drinks outside the train station in Slovyansk.

To get there, or as close as we can get, we hire a driver to take us another three hours further east, through multiple police and military checkpoints, to Stanytsia Luhanska.

This is the only crossing right now between the rest of Ukraine and the northernmost occupied territory, manned by guards on both sides who check documents. People cross out from the occupied territory to buy certain Ukrainian goods, get cash from ATMs, collect government pensions or visit family and friends.

A chemical factory that makes fertilizer in Eastern Ukraine on the way to Stanitsya Luhanska. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A chemical factory that makes fertilizer in Eastern Ukraine on the way to Stanitsya Luhanska.

Top: A man walks towards the border with the northernmost separatist region in Eastern Ukraine. Bottom left: People guarding the border walk across some ice. Bottom right: A group heads towards the crossing with the separatist region. People cross out from the occupied territory to buy certain Ukrainian goods, get cash from ATMs, collect government pensions or visit family and friends. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Top: A man walks towards the border with the northernmost separatist region in Eastern Ukraine. Bottom left: People guarding the border walk across some ice. Bottom right: A group heads towards the crossing with the separatist region. People cross out from the occupied territory to buy certain Ukrainian goods, get cash from ATMs, collect government pensions or visit family and friends.

Ukrainian flags are reflected in a puddle at the crossing to the occupied territory in Stanytsia Luhanska. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Ukrainian flags are reflected in a puddle at the crossing to the occupied territory in Stanytsia Luhanska.

A Soviet star can be seen on a statue across the street from the crossing into occupied territories. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A Soviet star can be seen on a statue across the street from the crossing into occupied territories.

Just a few blocks from the crossing is the village, with row after row of single-story homes and a small central park. But nearly everyone left during the war, and many died.

We meet 66-year-old Davydovych, who doesn't want to give his last name, for fear of retribution. Speaking freely inside the occupied territories is dangerous, but even here, near the border outside, is risky. He has lived here his whole life and stayed after the war.

Davydovych tells us that just this morning he heard shooting nearby. He doesn't know from which direction, or who was doing the shooting. He sighs in a way that suggests he's given up trying to keep track.

A home in Stanytsia Luhanska that now stands vacant like many others on the street. Numerous buildings like this have clear signs of bullet and mortar holes. Nearly everyone has left the area. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A home in Stanytsia Luhanska that now stands vacant like many others on the street. Numerous buildings like this have clear signs of bullet and mortar holes. Nearly everyone has left the area.

We ask him what he'll do if more fighting comes, if Russia invades and the war starts again.

He shrugs and drops his arms to his sides. "I don't know, I'm just fed up," he says, and his eyes start to fill with tears. "I am broken inside."

For now, diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff continue. But for many in this part of the world, the threat of war has become a way of life.

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Look inside life along Ukraine's border with Russia, where war is a way of life : The Picture Show - NPR

A serviceman of the Teykovo Missile Formation (54th Guards Missile Division) takes part in combat patrol and anti-sabotage drills involving RS-24 Yars road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile systems.

Vladimir Smirnov | TASS | Getty Images

Russia is willing to risk "real financial harm" and all-out war to achieve its political objectives in Ukraine, defense analysts have said.

Moscow has denied that it plans to invade neighboring Ukraine, a former part of the Soviet Union, despite having assembled around 100,000 troops at the border.

Russia is demanding that Ukraine never be permitted to become a member of the NATO military alliance and has said it wants the organization to roll back its presence in Eastern Europe.

Samuel Cranny-Evans, a research analyst at defense and security think tank the Royal United Services Institute, said it was likely there was still a way to go before Russia invades Ukraine.

"This isn't an invasion force yet," he told CNBC in a phone call. "Russia has very deliberately built [this situation] in such a way that we will know when it is an invasion force."

He added that what we have seen so far was "just the first step," and now that things like air defense assets, convoys of fuel and ammunition and the personnel to man all of the equipment were being moved to the border, Russia was taking its second step.

A satellite image shows Russian battle groups and vehicles parked in Yelnya, Russia January 19, 2022.

Maxar Technologies | via Reuters

"There are, I would argue, quite a few steps to go through before we actually get to Russian troops moving onto Ukrainian soil," he said. "We might see standoff tactics like cruise missile test launches and cyberwarfare attacks, a bit of unrest and assassination in Ukraine, perhaps."

Cranny-Evans speculated that the first act of war would most likely be long-range missile strikes that targeted key military and industrial infrastructure in Ukraine.

"It's all about showing that if you continue down this road of not doing what we want, we have the ability to target your values," he told CNBC. "It isn't about Russian men killing Ukrainian men and women, it's about targeting the Ukrainian way of life."

Mathieu Boulegue, a research fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program, agreed, telling reporters during the think tank's press briefing on Friday that the Russians did not yet appear to be ready to invade.

A rocket launcher shoots missiles during tactical and special exercises with scouts of the Guards Tank Army of the Western Military District at the Golovenki training ground in the Moscow region, Russia, on January 28, 2022.

Russian Defense Ministry | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

"We have now one of the largest concentrations of force in Europe since World War II with a force that looks like an invasion force," he said. "[But] we're still missing some elements in terms of military logistics to make it fully able and capable of sustaining warfighting operations at the technical operational level."

However, he said he suspected that Russia was willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve its political goals.

"You don't send close to 100,000 troops and as many people in reserves to prove a point Russia has raised the stakes so high for me at this stage that it seems improbable it will just simply back down unless it gets something in return," he said.

Meanwhile, Cranny-Evans told CNBC that if these steps continued to unfold, it was worrying for the long-term outlook.

"According to Russian theory, they would actually only invade when they were pretty sure that the Ukrainians were already beaten," he said. "So they could, in theory, be beaten before Russian tanks even move across the border."

A screen grab captured from a video shows military units of the Southern Military District of Russia are on their way to a training site in the south of the country, for military exercises in Rostov, Russia on January 26, 2022.

Russian Defense Ministry | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Some NATO members have signaled their support for Ukraine as troops have continued to be amassed at the country's border with Russia.

Speaking in Parliament last week, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that "many Russian mothers' sons will not be coming home" if Russia moved to invade Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Britain's foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said the U.K. will introduce legislation this week to allow it to hit Russian banks, oligarchs and energy companies with economic sanctions.

On Sunday,Bob Menendez, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told CNN that the committee was devising the "mother of all sanctions" against Russia that would be "crippling to their economy" as a method of defending Ukraine.

German ministers have also said that Russia will face "massive" economic consequences if it takes any aggressive action against Ukraine.

"Real financial harm could be inflicted on Russia if the right sanctions and the right enforcement were put into place," Cranny-Evans said.

Even without sanctions, the entire operation is already likely to have been costly for Russia and those costs will only continue to rise if its troops invade.

"Large-scale military action obviously comes with significant costs in terms of fuel consumption, ammunition, losses and replacement losses," Henry Boyd, research fellow for defense and military analysis at think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told CNBC in a phone call. "The baseline cost of the [current] deployment is not a free action, but it's a relatively sustainable action you're not having to pay an awful lot more in terms of your budget to achieve what you're trying to do."

But he said the military action would already have had "knock-on consequences" domestically, with a large amount of civilian transportation being diverted to the military over the last few months.

"You've also already seen the effects that rumors of military action and likely economic sanctions have had on the stock market," he added. "So I think you will already have seen, indirectly, some level of significant economic cost for the action undertaken so far."

The finance and resources used in some recent military campaigns such as the Western-led air campaign in Libya may "pale in comparison" to what Russia would need to expend in a significant ground invasion, according to Boyd.

"But there's a pessimistic view that however costly and however much risk Russia may run in terms of short-term economic pain, it may still be seen as worth it if it's the only way to preserve what, in their mind, is the essential political situation in Russia's near abroad," he warned.

"If they need to go through war whatever the scale and the size to obtain their political strategic goals, they will do it," Chatham House's Boulegue agreed. "If they can avoid it, of course they will, because nobody in their right mind in the Kremlin would want more sanctions and to be ostracized even more."

War would be "costly and long" for Russia, he added, and potential sanctions and economic costs could carry additional political costs by sparking popular uprisings against the Kremlin.

"They would sign [Putin's] death in a way," Boulegue said.

Andrew Wood, associate fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Program and a former British ambassador to Russia, added that Putin was "motivated by a fear of popular revolutions," such as the unrest seen recently in Belarus.

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Russia is willing to go to war and incur sanctions over Ukraine, analysts warn - CNBC

Philip ReinerContributor

TheTechCrunch Global Affairs Projectexamines the increasingly intertwined relationship between the tech sector and global politics.

As Russian troops stand poised to yet again invade Ukraine, much attention has been focused in recent days on how to avoid escalation of the conflict. Recent (and likely ongoing) escalations in cyberattacks on Ukraine suggest that this conflict will be unfortunately severe in the digital domain. And unlike a ground invasion, the U.S. government has warned that the digital conflict zone may expand to include the United States, as well. Years of Russian cyber probing and preparing the environment could well culminate in significant and potentially destructive attacks against private-sector American interests in the coming weeks and months.

If this level of vulnerability feels intolerable, good it should. But how did we get here? And what are the moves needed to avoid disaster? To start, its critical to understand how President Vladimir Putin has experimented with 21st Century technical methods to contribute to achieving his longstanding vision for Russia.

Russias motives are conventional enough. In April 2005, Putin called the fall of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century and a genuine tragedyfor the Russian people. This core belief has guided many of Russias actions since. Today, the drums of war are unfortunately beating loudly in Europe, as Putin seeks to forcibly return more of Russias periphery back under formal control and push back on perceived Western encroachment.

While there are a number of factors driving why Russia has chosen now as the time to increase its aggression against Ukraine and assert itself in Europe more broadly its asymmetric capabilities in areas like cyber certainly give it a broader set of tools to shape the outcomes in its favor.

Russias geopolitical position with a waning population base and woeful economic situation drives its leadership to find ways to reassert itself on the global stage. Russian leaders know they cant compete conventionally, so they turn to more easily accessible and, as it turns out, immensely powerful and effective asymmetric tools. Their disinformation campaigns have done much to contribute to the pre-existing societal fissures here in the United States, exacerbating our fracturing politics in keeping with standard Russian intelligence practices. Indeed Russian leadership likely sees an opportunity with the West as distracted by the COVID pandemic and internal turmoil that it sometimes helps sow.

But Putins long embrace of asymmetrical methods means Russia has been preparing for this moment for years. There is a familiarity to these activities: old means and tools from the Soviet era that have taken on a new face through the manipulation of twenty-first-century digital tools and vulnerabilities. And in recent years, it has used Ukraine, Libya, the Central African Republic, Syria, and other contested spaces as testing grounds for its information operations and damaging cyber capabilities.

Today, Russian actors have deployed a vast array of techniques for active measures to confuse, sow doubt, and delegitimize basic democratic institutions. The mercenaries and clandestine agents Russia is deploying into Ukraine have honed their skills in hybrid battlespaces abroad, using a mix of deception and kinetic action, deftly mixed with deniable influence operations and offensive cyber actions.

In cyberspace, Russia has graduated from its then-unprecedented 2007 cyberattack on Estonia and later NotPetya-style cyber attacks, which targeted Ukrainian utilities, ministries, banks, and journalists, which spilled over into one of the most costly cyberattacks in history to date. Russian intelligence services have been found hacking into U.S. critical infrastructure systems for some time now as wellyet, to date, without significant kinetic or deleterious impact or actions (unlike in Ukraine and elsewhere as detailed in books like Andy Greenbergs Sandworm). Theyve tested the reactions of the United States and its Allies, learned what they can get away with, and are pressing ever further as NATO countries debate what to do about Ukraine.

In sum, Russia has done its reconnaissance and likely pre-placed tools it may want to use against countries like the United States on a rainy day. That day may soon arrive.

As Russia ramps up its aggression against Ukraine, the United States has threatened a devastating economic response as part of the escalatory ladder (how nations methodically raise the stakes in the hopes of deterring an adversary in a conflict) toward an ever-increasingly more dangerous and likely violent resolution. What often goes unsaid is that Russian cyber capabilities are attempts at their own form of deterrence. Those preparatory activities Russia has engaged in over the years, as noted above, would allow those cyber eggs to hatch and the consequences to come home to roost here in America.

The U.S. government has explicitly and broadly warned that Russia may attack American private industry in response to those potentially severe U.S. sanctions. It is highly unlikely, knowing the sophistication of Russian actors in this space, that these attacks would be brazen, or even immediate. While they can be sloppy and imprecise at times (see NotPetya), their capabilities will likely allow them to meddle with our critical infrastructure and private industry via supply-chain attacks and other indirect and difficult-to-attribute means. In the interim, companies and service providers could face significant damage and deleterious downtime. If the past has been a nuisance, the near term portends potentially much greater negative economic impact as Putin and his oligarchs continue to press their longstanding agenda.

Hope remains that Russia will not continue to ramp up its aggression, and will indeed find off-ramps, avoiding these various scenarios. We should all hope that none of this will ever unfold. It is prudent however, indeed overdue at this point, that industry ensure that it takes the appropriate steps to protect itself from what we must now consider a potentially highly likely attack doubling down on multi-factor authentication, segmenting networks, maintaining backups, gaming out crisis response plans, and closing off access to only those with real need. What is happening with Ukraine seems a world apart, but with a few clicks, the impact may end up right here at home.

Continued here:
How the conflict in Ukraine threatens US cybersecurity - TechCrunch

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They push buttons, Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, says. What button of ours are they pushing here? What are they trying to get us to do? Vladimir Putin is gesturing toward a costly invasion of Ukraine, on the false pretext of protecting Russian-language speakers in the country. Why? In a wide-ranging conversation, Snyder talks with David Remnick about how to understand Russias aggression, the idea (advanced by Putin) that Ukraine historically and rightfully belongs to Russia, and the dictators far-reaching goal of destabilizing NATO. Snyder is the author of Bloodlands, a history of the Second World War, and also The Road to Unfreedom and On Tyrannywhich warn of the dangers that imperil American democracy. Running an oligarchy in which corruption is universal, Putin is basically stuck with spectacle, distractionsthe old bread and circuses ideabut also is working from a situation where you want to bring other countries down to your level, Snyder says. With that, you can understand their intervention in our elections or the way they talk about us: they want to bring out the elements of us, both rhetorically and in reality, that are most like the way they run the country. Putins governance of Russia and his foreign policy, in other words, are intricately entangled. I tend to think [the threat of invasion] is about the Biden Administration, in a pretty fundamental way, Snyder says. If your goal is to undermine NATOlets accept that that is their sincere goalwho do you want to be President? Trump. The crisis, he points out, puts Biden in a very bad position. Its very hard for Biden to look strong.... Insofar as there is a strategy here, its about dividing NATO members and putting pressure on the Biden Administration.

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Russias Intentions in Ukraineand America - The New Yorker

Kristina Kvien is the U.S. charge d'affaires in Kyiv, the top American official on the ground in the Ukrainian capital. She estimates that there are more than 100,000 Russian troops at the border to Ukraine, and that number is growing. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Kristina Kvien is the U.S. charge d'affaires in Kyiv, the top American official on the ground in the Ukrainian capital. She estimates that there are more than 100,000 Russian troops at the border to Ukraine, and that number is growing.

KYIV, Ukraine It's hard to imagine higher stakes than the ones right now for the U.S. charge d'affaires, who is currently the top American official on the ground in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

This week, with all eyes on the Russian border, Kristina Kvien is juggling talks with fellow diplomats and visiting members of Congress.

Her current estimate is Russian President Vladimir Putin has more than 100,000 troops at the border to Ukraine, and that number is growing.

"The troop buildup is continuing. It's not continuing at a rapid pace, but it is continuing at a regular pace," Kvien told NPR's All Things Considered.

Asked how concerned she is about the prospect of an imminent invasion, Kvien's response was simple: "We are very concerned."

"First of all, the number of troops and materiel that the Russians have at the border could allow them to do some sort of incursion at any time," she said. "So, when President Biden says that action is imminent, it's because there are enough now to do some sort of action."

Kvien is confident that if that were to happen, Ukraine's military would put up a significant fight. They are well-trained, well-equipped and very motivated, she said.

A Ukrainian serviceman works to fix a trench that was damaged by a mortar strike at a front line position in the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine on Friday. Vadim Ghirda/AP hide caption

A Ukrainian serviceman works to fix a trench that was damaged by a mortar strike at a front line position in the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine on Friday.

"Ukrainians in general and the Ukrainian military are very patriotic. They love Ukraine. They're willing to fight to save it. And I anticipate that they would do so and they would do so with great vigor."

While the situation appears to be a deadlock, with the U.S. steadfast in its refusal to Russia's demand that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO, Kvien is still hopeful a diplomatic solution is on the table.

The choice remains with Russia, she said.

"They have two paths they can take. The first, which is obviously the one that we and the Ukrainians very strongly prefer, is the path of diplomacy and discussion. The other path is the path of Russian aggression. And make no mistake about it, if Russia takes the path of aggression, it will face extremely severe consequences immediately."

"We have arrayed a group of sanctions and export controls that would have a very severe impact on Russia's economy, and we would implement those the moment that Russia takes aggressive action against Ukraine."

This is a message two visiting U.S. congressmen can get behind.

Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee (left) and Gregory Meeks of New York are members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and are currently in Kyiv. They say what is most important now is unity among Ukraine and its allies. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee (left) and Gregory Meeks of New York are members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and are currently in Kyiv. They say what is most important now is unity among Ukraine and its allies.

Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Mark Green, R-Tenn., are both members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and are in Kyiv.

They say while sanctions and whether they are implemented before or after any invasion remain an ongoing discussion, what is most important now is unity among Ukraine and its allies.

"Because the way Putin wins, is if he can divide us," Meeks said. "He would love to divide some of our NATO allies and some of our EU allies, and Ukrainians, divide us on this issue, that would be a victory for him. So we can't allow that to happen."

Green agreed, and said the calculation for the United States was an easy one.

"[Putin] put troops on the border of a NATO ally. And that changes the game for me. ... We're compelled to work to a diplomatic solution here as quickly and as effectively as we can," he said.

As for what to look for next, Kvien said the U.S. was preparing for any moves and was waiting to hear from Putin himself.

"When taking information from Russia, frankly, it's President Putin you need to listen to, and he hasn't spoken yet, so we're waiting for him to speak out," she said. "We're hoping that he does choose a diplomatic path. If he does, I think we have a lot of things we can talk about."

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Russia has just two options in front of it, says the top U.S. official in Ukraine - NPR