The US, UK and Australian Governments have urged their citizens and families of diplomats to leave Ukraine.
There is no role for Australian submarines or its other naval forces due to distant geography with Australia's government indicating it won't send military aid to Ukraine.
It is NATO naval forces (say in thee Black Sea surrounding Crimea) as well as air and land forces who may be able to apply pressure on Russia.
But NATO appears not to want to send troops actually to Ukraine as this might give Russia a pretext to invade. Instead the US and other NATO countries have placed troops on high alert to move to eastern-central European countries like the Baltic states near Ukraine.
However indirect military aid may be sent. The Baltic States "Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said they plan to send US-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by Washington."
On Ukraine:
- Putin aims may be merely political. To restate the oft forgotten obvious: Putin may be aiming at an official, or semi-official Finlandisation of Ukraine's foreign-defence policy - where Ukraine renounces any aims to join NATO.
- there is much focus on Russian forces massing north of Kiev.
- the Russian proxy militia and actual Russian forces, who have already been in eastern Ukraine and Crimea for 5 years, seem to have been forgotten. See map below:
![]()
Situation in April 2021. Map courtesy Daily Mail.
---
An invasion may come south down to Kiev, but also west from eastern Ukraine, and north from Crimea. See map below.
Possible Russian invasion routes and forces. Map courtesy news.com.au here, November 23, 2021.
---
- More limited objective "salami slicing" the takeover of key territory in Eastern or other parts of Ukraine may take place
- Ukraine is unfortunately a deeply corrupt country. Its polticians may have little leadership credibility.
- Russian loyalty could be bought or threatened. This may make for a quick, little contested political and/or military takeover.
- Putin may not be concerned by equivocal "threatened" responses by Biden and other NATO leaders, especially if Putin just sees them as the usual economic sanctions.
- China could buy up more Russian oil and gas to defray such Western economic sanctions.
- February represents the depth of Winter in NATO's Europe when Russian gas for heating is most valued. Putin cutting off the gas (piped to some NATO countries) may seem worse than basically allowing a Russian taking over, of all or part of Ukraine.
Clearly the possibilities are wide open. Whether the NATO response represents deescalating prudence, appeasement, or something in between, is unknowable until more happens.
