When Will Russia Invade Ukraine?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent according to President Joe Biden, and is now predicted to happen as early as this week. Biden and his advisors are now urging all Americans living in Ukraine to evacuate the country, within the next 24-48 hours, in light of a massive escalation of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border.

The US is simultaneously sending 3,000 of their own troops to neighboring Poland in case the invasion happens even faster than they expect, with an additional 8,500 troops ready for deployment, and Biden’s national security advisor, Jack Sullivan, is warning that Russia would start the invasion through aerial bombings and missile attacks, with new sources pointing to Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv among the targets. In Biden’s own words: things in Ukraine could ”go crazy, quickly.” 

Russia has already amassed over 100,000 troops along the border of Ukraine, and just launched what they are calling “military exercises” in neighboring Belarus and naval drills in the Black Sea. And even though Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied and mocked the idea of invasion, which is exactly the same thing he did when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Putin has also unambiguously warned Ukraine’s European allies that they can expect defensive military action on Russia’s part unless Ukraine is banned from joining NATO - which only really exists as a buffer against Russia invading Europe, one country at a time.

In fact, in a recent speech, Putin warned that if Ukraine was allowed to join NATO, then any response to a Ukrainian-Russian conflict, especially around reclaiming the Ukrainian region of Crimea, which Russia annexed in their last invasion - would spark a nuclear response from Russia, with Putin saying “Победителей не будет”:“There will be no winners”. And by calling Ukraine and NATO a belligerent state and a belligerent alliance, 

What Putin is doing is absurdly clear - Russia is acting as an aggressor against Ukraine, and has already violated their sovereignty, but after doing so Russia is now playing the victim by claiming that any potential effort by Ukraine to avoid further invasion and annexation would be seen as an attack on Russia, and justify a military response, despite the fact that Russia started this entire conflict unprovoked and is the only aggressor continuing to threaten Ukraine and the rest of Europe. As it stands, Russia currently has enough troops ready to go to launch a major invasion, one that would likely stretch much farther than a regional annexation like we saw in 2014.

And despite many meetings and calls between Russian officials and Ukrainian allies, Putin and his administration are making absolutely no effort to negotiate beyond demanding that Ukraine be left unprotected by NATO - which again, is literally the only reason NATO exists. But that’s not to say that the threat that western countries and particularly the United States pose to Russia doesn’t exist - the US is unambiguously a globally belligerent force that uses its allies to violate the sovereignty of nearly every country on earth, Russia included.

The US has 750 military bases in 80 countries, while hosting zero foreign military bases themselves. Frankly, an invasion of Ukraine would funnel millions if not billions of dollars into the pockets of weapons and equipment manufacturers in the United States. But the reality and threat of American imperialism and the military industrial complex is not why Russia is on the verge of invasion. That reality is being used as a flimsy excuse by Putin to enact Russian imperialism and a gradual return to the power of the Soviet Union by officially or unofficially controlling former Soviet states - the largest of which besides Russia, is Ukraine.

But it is important to understand that even within the context of the situation, where Russia is clearly the aggressor - it’s also possible that US intelligence services and the Biden administration are wrong. Despite the fact that they are not committing troops to directly defend Ukraine, the US is not an impartial bystander in this conflict.

The power struggle between America and Russia did not end with the Cold War, and when two superpowers compete for regional and global influence, the biggest losers are the countries that are caught up in the power struggle. And in this case, it’s Ukraine.