Home > Russian military strategy and power projection, from the Arctic to the war in Ukraine. Interview with Katarzyna Zysk

Russian military strategy and power projection, from the Arctic to the war in Ukraine. Interview with Katarzyna Zysk

15/03/2022
Katarzyna Zysk

Currently Visiting Professor at CERI Sciences Po, Katarzyna Zysk is a Professor of International Relations and Contemporary History at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, part of the Norwegian Defence University College (NDUC) in Oslo. A specialist of security, defense and strategic studies, in particular Russia’s military strategy, warfare, the Russian nuclear strategy, geopolitics in the Arctic, defense innovation and breakthrough technologies, she has agreed to answer our questions on the Russian strategy in the Arctic, as well as the current war in Ukraine...

You have been observing and studying the Russian military presence in the Arctic for many years. What do recent developments tell us about the Russian strategy in the region, compared to the country’s positioning in other borderlands?

The major difference between the Arctic region and other Russian borderlands is that, until relatively recently, large parts of the Arctic were inaccessible to broader human presence, naturally protected by ice. Yet climate change has spurred significant changes in the natural environment and, consequently, in the regional strategic dynamics, bringing Russa’s sustained focus on the region and a growing international interest.

Since 2007 in particular, Russia’s determination to strengthen its positions in the region has been driven by a combination of economic optimism and security pessimism: on the one hand, Moscow hopes to fill the state coffers with profits generated by economic development, notably the extraction of rich energy reserves and other natural resources, and developing the Northern Sea Route as a major link between Asia, Europe and North America. At the same time, Russia is bracing for an impact of a complex spectrum of perceived new security threats from state and non-state actors expected to be generated by the increasing human activity in the Arctic. In a classic zero-sum game perspective, the Russian authorities have systematically argued that either Russia solidifies and expands its influence in the Arctic, or other stakeholders will drive Russia away from the region. Russia’s deep-rooted and persisting sense of insecurity vis-à-vis other great powers has been further fuelled by the need to justify extensive military investments in this remote and relatively stable region.

In addition, the Arctic continues to play a central role in Russian military doctrine and strategy, and holds a symbolically important place in the country’s history and national identity. As such, it is well-suited for signalling and demonstrating Russia’s capabilities, communicating seriousness of Russia’s intentions, both to the domestic and foreign audiences. The displays of military power in the Arctic, as a part of the broader trend of national mobilisation, have intensified since Putin’s return as president in 2012.

The Russian military build-up in the Arctic happened in the context of Russia’s increasingly aggressive behaviour on the international stage, characterized by an assertive rhetoric and a growing use of the force. The military has returned as a cornerstone of Russian foreign policy—increasingly relying on the use of force, the threat of use of force, and coercive diplomacy. Russia’s Arctic policies have thus alerted many nations, notably NATO countries (four of which—Norway, Denmark (Greenland), Canada and the United States—are Arctic costal states) to devote more attention to this region and to strengthen defence and deterrence, especially after Russia’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea in 2014.

As a result of the 14 years of modernisation, Russia has significantly and systematically expanded its permanent military presence in the Arctic, adding new units in key defence branches, modernising and building new military bases and airfields on Arctic islands, deploying new nuclear and non-nuclear weapon systems and dual-use capabilities, such as icebreakers — to name but a few examples.

Likewise, the Russian military activity and training has sharply increased in quantity, scope, and complexity since 2008, in particular in the maritime and air domain.

Russian military Feb 2022. by Yakolev Sergei for Shutterstock

Russian military, Arkhangelsk, February 2022.
Photo by Yakovlev Sergei for Shutterstock

Is the situation in the Arctic affected by the war in Ukraine?

For now, there have been relatively limited spill-over effects. On the political level, the Arctic Council is now “in pause mode” as seven of eight member states have condemned the Russian war. They have vowed not to travel to Russia for meetings in the Arctic Council, which for the current two-year period until 2023 is chaired by Moscow. In addition, the Nordic countries have suspended activities involving Russia in the Barents Euro-Arctic cooperation. It is a part of the Western strategy of isolation, stigma, economic pain and denying Russia international legitimacy as a response to its aggression in Ukraine. Recently, Russia has declined an invitation to observe the biannual Norwegian-hosted exercise Cold Response with NATO Allies and partner countries, which takes place in the Arctic in March and April (and which was announced 8 months ago).

These effects demonstrate yet again that the Arctic is not an insulated security space, but is rather closely connected with other regions. In fact, also in Russian strategic thinking. This concerns not least the region’s central role in Russia’s nuclear deterrence. On 27 February 2022, Putin ordered a “special mode of combat duty in the strategic deterrence forces.” This statement was coupled not only with the warning about “consequences you have never seen in your history”, but also with an exercise of the nuclear forces that followed a few days later. In addition to the dispersal of road-mobile ICBMs, the exercice involved the strategic submarines (SSBN) of the Northern Fleet—the strongest of the Russian four fleets (and one flotilla), deployed in the European Arctic on the Kola Peninsula, just across the border with Norway. Although formally not announced as such, in the current military-political situation, the exercise should be seen as a part of nuclear signalling in the current military-political situation, aimed to highlight the seriousness of Russia’s intentions.

In case of an escalation, the Northern Fleet’s primary task is to deploy the bastion defence to protect the bases and operational area for the strategic submarines and other key assets. As Russian military exercises demonstrated over the past decade, there is also a potential that in some scenarios, it can be used as a mean of a vertical and horizontal escalation to pressure the opponent from another strategic direction.

Furthermore—as I have stressed over the years—what happens in the Arctic will not stay in the Arctic. This includes the Russian armed forces, especially as Russian strategic mobility has improved and because Russia’s military capability remains limited, despite the military modernization. Indeed, selected units of the Northern Fleet have been taking part in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. This includes several large assault landing ships and the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, which also took part in the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. It has been reportedly severely damaged since the attack started.

Given the seemingly poor performance of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, have Russian military and technological capacities been overestimated? If so, why?

Finding the balance between acknowledging the capability of the significantly modernised Russian military since 2008 (when the large-scale modernisation programme was launched), without overestimating it—as it was the case after the annexation of Crimea­—has been a long-standing challenge for scholars, experts, policy makers, and the broader public. The community working on the topic has generally considered elements of weakness and vulnerabilities in the analyses. Generally, however, the poor performance of the Russian forces in Ukraine was a surprise. One of the reasons is that, based on the currently available information, Moscow planned for an entirely different type of conflict then the one actually enfolding: they expected a rapid and relatively easy regime-change operation, with little resistance by the Ukrainian army and the broader population. Hence, in the initial phase, Russia sent on the front paratroopers and special operation forces, as well as parts of the battalion-tactical groups with no to little cover. They met, however, with a fierce resistance and suffered many humiliating defeats and setbacks, including serious problems with logistics, communication, reconnaissance, intelligence, problems with precision strikes, air defences, and low morale among troops, that led to numerous cases of desertion.

The mistaken assumptions on which the military operation was planned suggests Russia does not understand Ukraine—or that there were few willing to play the role of harbinger of a message that did not conform to Putin’s convictions. Russia has already paid a high price for the arrogance of considering Ukraine a fake state with no national identity (separate to the Russian), ruled by “Nazis” and awaiting “liberation” by Russian forces. Likewise, Putin has underestimated the Western response, likely assuming it would get away with the agression yet again: Russia would “deescalate”, strike a deal, and everybody would more or less go back to business as usual. Just as Russia got away with the war in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the intervention to save Bashar al-Assad in Syria from 2015. The strong unity and massive condemnation of the ongoing aggression by the international community was a surprise to the Kremlin.

This unity was achieved partly because Russia has lost the war in the information sphere. The Russian concept of “information confrontation” is more expansive than the Western understanding of information operations or information warfare. It is in fact an instrument cross-cutting and supporting the various other instruments of power—diplomatic, economic, political, military—in wartime as well as in peacetime. The United States, however, took the Kremlin by surprise with swift and extensive disclosures of intelligence information exposing Russian attempts, one after another, to forge a pretext and justify the aggression, thus denying Russia the dominance in the cognitive domain. As a result, Russia was unable to sow confusion, uncertainty and disagreements about the nature of the conflict, and thus weaken and slow down the Western response to Russia’s actions.

Ukrainian population leaving the country. Photo by Yanosh Nemesh for Shutterstock

Oujhorod, Ukraine, February 2022. The populating is waiting at the border to flee the war.
Photo by Yanosh Nemesh for Shutterstock

Russian forces have been, however, regrouping after the initial setbacks. Given the humiliation and rising economic, political and military costs, Russia—and Putin personally—is desperate to get results. Hence, we have seen a move toward a crawling war of attrition on multiple axes with an indiscriminate use of force, including artillery and air force strikes. The brutalility toward the civilian population is aimed to thwart their resistance, break their will to fight and pressure President Zelenskii and his governement. Russia has made advances in the north, east and south, but at enormous human and material cost, struggling to logistically sustain multiple fronts. The supply chains are often disrupted by the Ukranian army, which further aggravates problems with personnel, supplies and equipment. We might be nearing a tipping point.

Certainly, the war has been thus far a major blow to the reputation of the Russian armed forces. Despite that it  was known that the effects of the military modernisation have not been distributed uniformly across the military organisation. It has been plagued by structural and circumstantial weaknesses and problems for a long time, such as the struggle of the defence industry with delivering quantity and quality on time and for an acceptable price, issues with a sustained and predictable funding, with brain drain and declining expertise, with lacking quality control, in addition to pervasive corruption—to name but a few problems.

The complexity of the Russian military organisation coupled with limited transparency provide a fertile ground for assessments that can be skewed toward one part of the picture. Many parts of the Russian military organisation, operations, capabilities, and activity, including those in development and experimentation phase, remain highly classified, while those presented publicly may be designed to produce a particular signal effect. In any case, the reality of the Russian military development is often complex and requires a careful, nuanced analysis. The performance of the Russian military on the battlefield will provide an important reality check. The extent to which the problems the Russian military runs into in Ukraine derive from the wrong assumptions and the extent to which the weaknesses apply to the broader military organisation, remain to be seen. It is still too early to make definitive conclusions, also because the information from the battlefield paints only a partial picture and is often hard to verify.

What does it mean to be a young female researcher working on sensitive topics–in an authoritarian state?

Conducting research in closed contexts or constrained environments, such as authoritarian or nondemocratic political systems, means facing numerous methodological challenges. These can be related to gaining access to information from primary sources such as documents, government officials, and other political and military decision-makers and elites. Obviously, it requires a careful approach to the quality of information and source criticism, especially in authoritarian countries, which do not shy away from misinformation and manipulation. Questions to be asked include: what is the origin of the information; what type of source is it and who created it; how reliable it is; which audience is the source directed at; how does this source corroborate or contradict the information from another source, and so on.

Fieldwork can be particularly demanding. Interviews are often important for conducting exploratory and theory-building research. However, especially since Putin’s return to power in 2012, the control over the society and political life has been sharply tightened, further limiting freedom to protest, freedom of speech, including on the internet, limiting the influence of NGO. Russia also adopted new laws, such as the law on extremism and espionage, which can easily be used to persecute non-complying parties. The environment has become even harder for researchers in the wake of the annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing war has obviously worsened the conditions, with increasing repressions. The challenges are even greater in case of researching particularly sensitive topics, such as security and defence policies, military strategy and warfare, armed forces development, emerging military technologies and defence innovation. Interviews require considering ethical and safety issues, both for interviewees and researchers. Self-censoring among interviewees can become a problem, and understandably so.

Gaining access to the right people for an interview can also be challenging and time consuming. Russia is a particularistic culture as opposed to universalistic cultures. To simplify somewhat, in the latter, the rule of law is generally more important than relationships; law is expected to be followed. In a particularistic culture such as Russia, relationships often determine what gets done—in business, politics, and other aspect of life.

Forming personal networks, composed of family and friends is thus essential for gaining access. Doing so may be particularly hard for a foreign researcher without the necessary personal networks. In addition, Russia is known for having large power distance, which may increase the problem of getting to the right people. Trust is also an issue if the researcher is not perceived as somebody important or is not recommended by somebody trustworthy. Gender, age, and status may also play a role. Being a younger, female researcher has had its downsides, such as patronizing attitudes and sexism. From the experience of other colleagues, however, I know that sometimes not being taken seriously could be helpful as respondents were able to speak more freely. These experiences can vary broadly. I did bring home a few anecdotes. Mostly, however, I had excellent conversations with Russian experts, journalists, politicians, representatives of the military, representing a wide range of views.

What is your research path and what are you currently working on while you stay at CERI?

My way to research and the place I am right now professionally was unconventional. Initially, I intended to continue studying art after finishing a five-year visual art school that actually gave me a profession. Yet I was also fond of history of art and culture, and general history, which I ended up studying for five years. My interest for security in international relations has always been there. For someone growing up behind the Iron Curtain (Poland), it has never been a purely abstract concept. It became a major focus of my MA, and later PhD, studies. After defending my 2006 thesis on NATO enlargement, I was invited to participate in a competition for a one-year research grant, which ultimately brought me to Oslo. It provided me an excellent opportunity to continue security studies, which I have gradually expanded to defence and strategic studies. One year in Oslo turned into 15 years this year, though I have also gained invaluable research experience during my research stays at Stanford University, at the University of Oxford, and the US Naval War College, and now at Sciences Po.

At the CERI, I am continuing my research on emerging and breakthrough technologies and their impact on the trajectory of future warfare. It is a fascinating topic that will have major implications for the broader international system, influencing key concepts such as deterrence, and likely encouraging new phases of arms competitions across the world. I also continue working on my long-standing research topic: security and defence in the Arctic, as well as Russian military strategy and power projection in international relations, including the role of nuclear weapons.

Interview by Miriam Périer, CERI.

Further reading

In the media

  • Implications and future prospects of Russia’s offensive in Severodonetsk, interview, BBC World News TV, Impact, 27 May 2022
  • NATO enlargement to Nordic countries – strategic implications, interview Polish Radio Channel 1, 16 May 2022
  • Analysis of the strategic implications of Sweden's Finland’s historic decision to join NATO - for Northern Europe, the Baltic region, and for Russia, interview, Polsat News Evening Review, 14 May 2022
  • NATO enlargement to Nordic countries – strategic implications, interview, Radio TOK FM, 14 May 2022
  • Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine, interview, BBC Radio, 14 May 2022
  • “The progression and prospectd of the Russian invasion of Ukraine", interview, NRK Norwegian TV – Morning News, 17 March 2022.
  • Russia’s stalling offensive in Ukraine, interview, BBC Radio Foyle, Northern Ireland,16 March 2022
  • Major obstacles in the Progress of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, interview, Ukrainecast - BBC podcast , 7 March 2022
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