David Pratt: Is Putin about to rerun Russia's 2008 Georgia war in Ukraine?

In all it lasted no more than 10 days and seemed to have come out of nowhere catching the West by surprise, but it shouldn’t have.

I’m speaking of the war back in 2008 that broke out between Russia and Georgia in the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with each side accusing the other of starting hostilities.

It may have been short, but it still cost hundreds of lives, displaced tens of thousands and left both territories in a tense standoff to this day. It was in effect Russia’s first successful military action outside of its border since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It came too in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s now famous Munich speech at the 2007 Security Conference in the city where all the clues were there as to the geopolitical and foreign policy direction in which Russia was heading.

Putin at the time pulled no punches in his criticism of the United States and the West for their monopolistic dominance in global relations, and “almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations”.

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In the months that followed there was a massive surge in tension culminating in Russia suspending its participation in the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and ultimately war broke out with Georgia.

This was only the start, for in the days that followed the 2008 French brokered ceasefire in Georgia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev openly outlined what in future would amount to a Russian foreign policy blueprint that the Kremlin would use for any future intervention of its own, including the protection of “Russian speakers” over potential “foreign threats”.

If all this sounds familiar then it should, given what Moscow did next in both Crimea and eastern Ukraine, where right now on its border with that country Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops, tanks, heavy weapons, and warplanes.

Yesterday, Putin was once again making a speech, his annual state of the nation address, and the tone had just a touch of deja vu about it when thinking back to 2007 before the outbreak of hostilities with Georgia.

Right now, those similarities are not lost on officials across European foreign ministries, among whom an increasing number believe Russia’s military build-up on the Ukraine border has moved beyond “posturing”, and is in fact the military muscle required to backup Moscow’s recognition of the sovereignty of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in Ukraine.

That both regions are populated by those very Russian speakers that Medvedev back in 2008 said Moscow would intervene in future to “protect” has only added to speculation as to what Russia’s next move might be.

Late on Tuesday night fellow journalist Chris Brown, the Moscow correspondent of Canadian broadcaster CBC, tweeted a report citing a senior Russian official as saying that an emergency meeting of the Federation Council of Russia or upper house of parliament will take place this Friday (April 23,) in which the official claimed instructions given by Putin after his speech yesterday would require “quick implementation”.

The tweet went on to quote Boris Vishnevsky deputy of the St Petersburg Legislative Assembly saying that included among the few operational powers of the Federation Council were; Approval of a decree on the introduction of martial law or state of emergency and deciding the possibility of using the Armed Forces outside the territory of Russia.

As Brown rightly pointed out these possibilities are deeply concerning, not least as sources at the online European newspaper EUobserver also said that whatever Russian presidential decree was being sought by Putin, it could come before the weekend.

There was no mistaking the tone of Putin’s address yesterday, warning the West – just as in 2007 – not to cross Russia’s “red lines”.

Again, too there were echoes of that past Georgia war whereby accusations of starting hostilities could be rebuffed by claims of unwarranted provocation.

“In some countries, they have developed a highly unseemly habit of picking on Russia for any reason, and most often for no reason at all – a kind of sport,” said Putin.

“Organisers of any provocations that threaten our core security interests will regret what they have done like they’ve never regretted anything for a long time.”

For some time now Moscow, to some extent understandably, has expressed growing frustration at what it regards as being boxed-in by Nato’s own expanding influence in the region.

This has given rise to a “fortress Russia” mindset at the Kremlin, hence Moscow’s view that should Ukraine be given full membership of Nato, that might well constitute the crossing of a “red line” as Putin referred to it yesterday.

Right now, the tension between Russia and the West and its allies only mounts, with Washington triggering sanctions on Moscow over accusations of computer hacking and election interference, and the Czech Republic accusing Moscow of a role in explosions at an arms depot in 2014.

Some of the language coming right now from Kremlin officials only exacerbates the tension.

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It was Dimitrij Kozak, deputy head of the presidential administration, who spoke recently for example of the “beginning of the end” of Ukraine.

Anyone targeting ethnic Russians in the Donbas region he warned will not be “shot in the leg, but in the face”.

Ukraine knows all too well it would almost certainly fare terribly in any war with Russia. Aware of this and perhaps hedging his bets and holding out for Western support in any worst-case scenario, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky this week invited Putin to meet, stressing that millions of lives were at stake should fresh fighting erupt.

This didn’t stop Zelensky at the same time enacting a law to allow Ukraine’s reservist soldiers to be recruited within 24 hours without announcing mobilisation.

It’s a measure of the dangerous juncture at which this crisis now stands. This too before that other thorny issue, the fate of Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, now said to be at death’s door in a Russian penal colony prison.

Seen from a Western perspective any Russian invasion of Ukraine might appear unreasonable or illogical, but that was precisely the mistake made back in 2008 over Georgia. Should the West be wrongfooted yet again by Putin, the stakes this time will much higher indeed. Frankly, there’s also no telling where such a war might lead.