Risk sentiment improved markedly Tuesday on reports that “some” Russian troops and armored vehicles returned to bases after completing “drills” and “exercises,” but those of a skeptical persuasion remained wary.
To be sure, even tentative signs of deescalation on Ukraine’s border were welcome, but the knee-jerk reaction across assets risked overshooting unless confirmed by intelligence suggesting a material drawdown in border positions is underway or some other meaningful indication that the threat of a full-fledged invasion has passed.
“‘I think this refers to those from Western and Southern military districts which remain close to Ukraine,” BlueBay’s Tim Ash wrote, in a social media post responding to the first headline from Interfax. “[Putin] managed to rally the West back around NATO, which again has common purpose. Ukrainian sovereignty [is] affirmed, even strengthened,” he said later, in a note cited by at least one mainstream financial news outlet. He was more cautious on social media. “Other forward deployments continue,” he went on to say, calling Tuesday’s headlines an example of “very mixed messaging” from the Kremlin.
The initial announcement from the Russian Defense Ministry didn’t specify which troops were returning from where. Subsequently, Interfax cited the press service of the Southern Military District in reporting that troops in Crimea finished drills and were in the process of returning to permanent bases. Sergei Lavrov echoed that. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov provided a bit more in the way of specifics. “Units of the Southern and Western Military Districts, which have accomplished their missions, are boarding trains and trucks and will head for their garrisons later today,” he said.
Dmitry Peskov mocked the West, as he’s wont to do. “We’ve always said the troops will return to their bases after the exercises are over,” he mused, adding that Putin has asked subordinates to “find out if the exact time, to the hour, of the start of the war has been published.” He called the West’s strategy of releasing intelligence in order to deter an invasion “information madness.”
Ukraine, meanwhile, isn’t convinced. “If we see a withdrawal, we will believe in deescalation,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, flatly. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was in the middle of an interview with LBC radio when the headlines of troop drawdowns began to cross. “[I’d] need to see more details to understand if that has any major implications,” she remarked. Earlier in the interview, she reiterated the obvious. The UK “do not trust” what Russia has to say.
The latest headline hockey came a day after Wall Street was whipsawed by overzealous algos jumping on a sarcastic remark from Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Tuesday’s news was greeted with quick reversals across FX, rates and equities.
“If Putin has really blinked, this would be huge win for Biden, Zelenskiy and the West,” BlueBay’s Ash was quoted as saying.
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s firebrand propaganda minister (not her official title), sees things differently. “February 15, 2022, will go down in history as the day Western war propaganda failed,” she declared. “Humiliated and destroyed without a single shot fired.”
Making Putin back down is absolutely a win for the West. His propaganda assault on pro-Democracy countries has done significant damage to NATO power and disrupted the unity of NATO backed countries. Threatening Ukraine has undone quite a bit of that damage already, fully invading would actually strengthen NATO’s resolve and purpose. This was a miscalculation by him, not the west.
So far you are right. I always thought Putin was gauging reaction. The fact they have not launched a full scale invasion does not mean there is not trouble ahead. Putin so far is not a winner though as you stated.
The linked Reuters article makes the fog of “very mixed messaging” very clear. It will take 4 days of troop and ordinance movements, if not more, before declaring “absolutely a win for the West” might be technically correct, but, that does not make such a declaration wise or useful. The ‘West’ has demonstrated less long term threat memory than a decapitated gnat to many times for me to take comfort in the unfounded and wishful thought some lesson has been learned from yet another authoritarian’s provocation, or, that some new found resolve to forestall similar Russian blackmail in the future will now take hold. If anything the US needs to have some serious talks with Germany about their policies regarding Ukraine and Russia. Waiting for the middle of a crisis to learn your partner(s) isn’t on the same page has not been a good look this time around.
Putin called the West’s strategy of releasing intelligence in order to deter an invasion ‘information madness’.
Sour grapes.
Yet another example of why you can not and should not rely on anything “published” on the internet unless you know and trust the writer.
Anyone living in their parent’s basement with a computer can start publishing “facts, figures and events”. For that matter, they can rewrite history. too. Let alone anyone with a political or social agenda.
Don’t worry- I do not have a basement.
H – as more and more time passes, your status as a rare diamond to be found on the wasteland of the internet, is solidified. Thank you, sir.
In light of comments by Heisenberg and readers concerning the situation in Ukraine, I have discerned a bias in the comments based reports in the U.S media and what I have read in European media. In the interest of balance I will try to present the other side.
The goal of Russia is not to invade Ukraine—this could be accomplished at any time. Rather, the goal of Russia is to destroy NATO.
This will not be accomplished through the direct use of military force, but rather the indirect threat of military action which forces NATO to react in a way which exposes the impotence of an organization which long ago lost its raison d-etre, collective defense, and instead flounders under the weight of a mission—the containment of Russia—it cannot achieve, and which its membership is not united in pursuing.
By militarizing the Ukraine crisis, Russia has exposed the absolute military impotence of NATO. First and foremost, after dangling the bait of NATO membership before Ukraine for the past fourteen years, NATO was compelled to confess that it would not be able to come to the defense of Ukraine in case of any Russian military invasion because Article 5 only allowed collective defense to be invoked for NATO members, which Ukraine is not.
Moreover, the “massive” economic sanctions that NATO has promised to unleash in lieu of a military response have turned out to be as impotent as NATO’s military power. Despite what the political leadership of NATO and the United States may say to the contrary, there is no unity of purpose when it comes to imposing sanctions on Russia in the event of a military incursion into Ukraine.
In short, any sanction package that targets Russian energy and/or access to banking institutions will hurt Europe far more than Russia. While the United States continues to push for Europe, and in particular Germany, to wean itself off Russian energy supplies, the fact is there is no viable alternative to Russian energy and, moreover, Europe is increasingly recognizing that the U.S. position has less to do with European security and more to do with a play by the U.S. to grab the European market for itself.
The world has fundamentally changed. NATO literally has no relevance.
All Russia has done is demonstrate the empty shell that NATO has become by underscoring just how empty the Article 5 promise of collective defense truly is.
The fractures exposed in NATO’s membership when it comes to Ukraine will only grow larger over time. It may take years for NATO to go away, but let no one be fooled by what is happening—NATO is finished as an alliance.
Putin is getting exactly what he wants.
Thanks for posting that.
A one-two punch to augment their brilliant & very successful anti-vax/anti-mandate disinformation campaign.
Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, the Baltic states, etc. have no interest in being members of a revived Warsaw Pact answerable at the end of the day to a thuggish autocrat. The more Putin overreaches in Ukraine, the more relevant NATO becomes. Autocracy is having a moment, but it — and Putin — are not the future.
There are two sides here. I tend to believe your Euro version more. We’re still chasing the 1950’s bogeyman. Something neither side says much about is that while Russia can make and utilize weapons they can’t make and distribute much else. War won’t take them very far for long. And both of us flopped in Afghanistan.
That was a well balances post (Thomas ) . I add the problem is in the Main Steam Media that avoided the Ukraine issue for the last several years like the Plague until this current S–T storm (barely 3 weeks old ) . Suddenly Covid coverage diminishes along with the virus and the Recession word needs less focus so Geopolitics is worth reporting after all , Putin does neither need or want this war but if he had to engage it’s better for him now than if the US hypothetically develops effective Hypersonic capability.. Putin is a Russian Nationalist under existential threat as he sees it and dropping this in the lap of a potential successor is not his style.
How about that? The Heisenberg Report has at least one fan in the Kremlin.
Nervous One – are you telling us that Tucker Carlson is a Heisenberg reader? That’s very cool!
Russia is a rickety remnant of a failed experiment, and Putin presides over a political system that exactly no one in the entire world (even frontier economies) envies. It’s a corrupt, oligarchical dictatorship with no credibility whatsoever on any front.
And that’s really all there is to it. None of that is “opinion.” It’s fact.