Putin goes for all of Novorossiya in 2014

What if, in early 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin would have outright sent the Russian Army to capture all of Novorossiya (as opposed to merely trying to spark a separatist rebellion there)?

See, i follow the russian perspective (which i trust more than any of the western MSM propaganda) of what is happening there frequently, but obviously not close enough, as until today i didn't realized what Novorussia is! (goes all the way to the moldavian border and completely landlocks the rest of Ukraine). So when you say Novorussia do you mean Donetsk and Lugansk only, or all the way to Odessa?

Other aspects ignored for the moment, getting all of Novorussia would mean Russia finally having access to the big shipyard at Nikolayev (which built all the soviet carriers), that would be something. If they invest in renovating it like they did with some similar but smaller yards in Crimea, this could be a new era for VMF, they can build carriers like Shtorm there if and when possible.

But anyway, this is a small detail compared to the ramifications of Novorussia (all of it) being either absorbed into Russia or at least being made an independent country supported by Russia. At any rate, it would have been be a huge PR victory for Russia and Putin.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
See, i follow the russian perspective (which i trust more than any of the western MSM propaganda) of what is happening there frequently, but obviously not close enough, as until today i didn't realized what Novorussia is! (goes all the way to the moldavian border and completely landlocks the rest of Ukraine). So when you say Novorussia do you mean Donetsk and Lugansk only, or all the way to Odessa?

I mean all of the way to Odessa.

Other aspects ignored for the moment, getting all of Novorussia would mean Russia finally having access to the big shipyard at Nikolayev (which built all the soviet carriers), that would be something. If they invest in renovating it like they did with some similar but smaller yards in Crimea, this could be a new era for VMF, they can build carriers like Shtorm there if and when possible.

But anyway, this is a small detail compared to the ramifications of Novorussia (all of it) being either absorbed into Russia or at least being made an independent country supported by Russia. At any rate, it would have been be a huge PR victory for Russia and Putin.

Russia would have also had to deal with much larger Western sanctions as well as possibly with massive protests and/or an insurgency in Novorossiya in this TL, though.
 
Poland will go nuts, and get themselves nukes. Or they might actually side with Ukrainians and fight back the Russians. They know Russia might not stop at Ukraine.
 
1.) General re-armament spree all over Europe.
2.) Sweden joins NATO on the first possible opportunity, Finland might quite likely follow suit.
3.) Baltic states will scream and beg for pernament Nato military presence at their soil, and instead of battalion-sized tripwire forces Nato might well send in multinational brigade-sized formations.
4.) China will be displeased.
5.) Different presidential race in the United States, and most likely a different POTUS.
 
Other aspects ignored for the moment, getting all of Novorussia would mean Russia finally having access to the big shipyard at Nikolayev (which built all the soviet carriers), that would be something. If they invest in renovating it like they did with some similar but smaller yards in Crimea, this could be a new era for VMF, they can build carriers like Shtorm there if and when possible.
I am not sure they would be able to get real aircraft carrier out of Black sea though. Would Turks allow it?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
 
Poland will go nuts, and get themselves nukes. Or they might actually side with Ukrainians and fight back the Russians. They know Russia might not stop at Ukraine.

Poland is better off waiting and seeing. If they unilaterally join in on behalf of Ukraine the NATO powers can leave Poland with its dick in the wind if Russia retaliates.
 
I am not sure they would be able to get real aircraft carrier out of Black sea though. Would Turks allow it?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
Actually i think it was explained with other occassions that there is a misunderstanding about the convention and there is really no limitation for carriers that belong to Black Sea countries (did i got that right?), it didn't affected USSR in the Cold War, wouldn't do it in present either, and anyway Turkey became best buddies with Russia these days?
 
1.) General re-armament spree all over Europe.
2.) Sweden joins NATO on the first possible opportunity, Finland might quite likely follow suit.
3.) Baltic states will scream and beg for pernament Nato military presence at their soil, and instead of battalion-sized tripwire forces Nato might well send in multinational brigade-sized formations.
4.) China will be displeased.
5.) Different presidential race in the United States, and most likely a different POTUS.

Actually i wouldn't expect anything near as dramatic as this. After all, the russian reaction comes after the US inspired/plotted/supported whatever coup in Ukraine, the internal media in the west and NATO satellites in the EE might spin it as the evil russian/Putinist imperial occupation of the peace loving innocent Ukraine and all that, but then this is how it pretty much goes in OTL as well, there might be some increased rearming (over OTL) of Poland, Romania etc. but the money must come from somewhere so that will be strongly felt in the poorer countries, besides even doubling the spending on the military in these countries will hardly affect the relative ratio with the russian military. Also the americans will never allow Poland etc. to have nukes of their own, they are not allowing SK or Japan to do that for instance.

There might be increased numbers of NATO troops in the baltics and whatnot, but again that hardly affects the russians. Actually, with Novorussia under russian control, the american BMD base in Romania is that much easier to target, the russians could put some Iskanders in Odessa f.e.- oh and yeah probably there is no Odessa massacre and no MH17 shoot-down. However, as far as casualties are concerned there is indeed the issue of various US/NATO supported extremist groups (far-right, jihadists etc.) causing disturbances in Novorussia, but i'm not so sure about any noteworthy population support for such groups, after all the population would crave for peace and stability and the promise of a better living (and Russia has a much higher standard of living compared to Ukraine) no matter who is in charge, Crimea being an example.

However, due to the loss of face, the US will seek to get some kind of "victory" somewhere else, so this may affect Syria which can go worse for the syrian governments if say the americans launch a full attack against it and it's troops, on the other hand the russians could still make sure a part of Syria (containing the naval bases) remain under Assad's control.

Why would China be "displeased" though? After all it can be seen as a paralel to the Taiwan situation.

But anyway, for all this to happen, imo we need Putin and the russian government to have a more hardline stance against the americans and their actions against russian interests (expansion of NATO, Georgia, Syria, etc.)
 
Some of the biggest effects of this would be the Russian invasion of Ukraine becoming one of the biggest issues in the upcoming Western elections. Training and arms are sent to guerilla forces in Ukraine, where Russian forces will be taking large numbers of casualties.

So far with them just invading the donbass region they have still taken several thousand casualties. After invading all of Ukraine this will balloon to tens of thousands.

This might actually get Europe to start trying to cut its dependence on Russian Natural Gas. A pipeline cant be built however to connect Middle Eastern Natural Gas to Europe so reliance will still continue.

Eastern European countries heavily reinforce to prevent Russian invasion, with NATO assets being placed there to furthur reinforce these countries.

In the upcoming elections being soft on Russia would become comparable to supporting Assad. People like Trump, Fillon and Le Pen would need to significantly alter there tone if they have any hope of winning.

To be honest however its possible several of these canidacies could be butterflied all together.
 
No major change would happen if Putin takes some vs most of Ukraine. The mentality of Western leaders and the political class was to ignore it and that won't change.
 
No major change would happen if Putin takes some vs most of Ukraine. The mentality of Western leaders and the political class was to ignore it and that won't change.

A larger Russian campaign will be more bloody all around (in terms of civilian casualties as well), it will cause more people to be displaced in Ukraine and outside of it, and it will be much harder to camouflage as a civil war/Eastern Ukrainian local insurgency, showing the Russian hand more clearly for the world to see. More international attention from European and international organizations would be needed, say the UNHCR and the International Red Cross would have to be involved much more than IOTL. It would also put the Ukrainian government in a significantly more precarious position internally and externally, up to the point that many in Europe would fear Ukraine would become an actual failed state.

After all this, I am certain there would be markedly more opposition/outrage towards the Russian actions in European nations at least than IOTL in that case, and thus calls for more NATO support for the Eastern members and more drastic sanctions towards Russia. We can argue that IOTL Russia has managed to keep its actions below such a threshold that many policians in "the West" have been able to essentially ignore what is happening. ITTL, it is likely that threshold would be breached and thus it would become more pressing to do something visible about what is happening, even if many people rather would like to pretend that there is nothing to see there.
 
After all this, I am certain there would be markedly more opposition/outrage towards the Russian actions in European nations at least than IOTL in that case, and thus calls for more NATO support for the Eastern members and more drastic sanctions towards Russia.

I am not so sure, the political class, media and elites are very good at ignoring the suffering of other nations when it suits their agenda and their agenda was very much to avoid bad relations or another Cold War with Putin at all costs.

This was the high point in post Cold War Western isolationism and if they press wants to focus on the butchery going on in Syria and the soon to be re-invasion of Iraq by ISIS over Ukraine as they wanted to OTL they would again.

The Western press by in large just wanted to believe and hope Putin would stop acting like a 19th century Imperialist on his own and had the view nothing is worse then another Cold War.

They didn't want to gin up Cold War feelings and they had the final say on how much the public sees and hears about it.
 
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CaliGuy

Banned
I am not so sure, the political class, media and elites are very good at ignoring the suffering of other nations when it suits their agenda and their agenda was very much to avoid bad relations or another Cold War with Putin at all costs.
If that was actually the case, the E.U. wouldn't have offered Association Agreements to Ukraine and some of the other ex-Soviet states.
 
If that was actually the case, the E.U. wouldn't have offered Association Agreements to Ukraine and some of the other ex-Soviet states.

The EU wants to expand, but they don't want economic or military conflict with Russia. Hell I think they would have loved a non-expansionist Russia joining the EU slowly over time. How hard is it to understand that the lawyers and business women and men running the EU don't think in terms of global politics like Putin.

If the EU wanted to squeeze economically Russia they would be spending massive sums on alternative energy and there would be no Nordstream II pipeline in development from Russia to Germany.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
There might be increased numbers of NATO troops in the baltics and whatnot, but again that hardly affects the russians. Actually, with Novorussia under russian control, the american BMD base in Romania is that much easier to target, the russians could put some Iskanders in Odessa f.e.- oh and yeah probably there is no Odessa massacre and no MH17 shoot-down. However, as far as casualties are concerned there is indeed the issue of various US/NATO supported extremist groups (far-right, jihadists etc.) causing disturbances in Novorussia, but i'm not so sure about any noteworthy population support for such groups, after all the population would crave for peace and stability and the promise of a better living (and Russia has a much higher standard of living compared to Ukraine) no matter who is in charge, Crimea being an example.
Wait what? Outside of Crimea there are no muslims in Ukraine. And the Crimean Tatars aren't the kind that can be easily radicalized.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
The EU wants to expand, but they don't want economic or military conflict with Russia.

The former can result in the latter, though.

Hell I think they would have loved a non-expansionist Russia joining the EU slowly over time. How hard is it to understand that the lawyers and business women and men running the EU don't think in terms of global politics like Putin.

That I agree with; indeed, I am simply pointing out that Putin views E.U. expansion as a threat to Russia.

If the EU wanted to squeeze economically Russia they would be spending massive sums on alternative energy and there would be no Nordstream II pipeline in development from Russia to Germany.

That I also agree with.
 
I am not so sure, the political class, media and elites are very good at ignoring the suffering of other nations when it suits their agenda and their agenda was very much to avoid bad relations or another Cold War with Putin at all costs.

This was the high point in post Cold War Western isolationism and if they press wants to focus on the butchery going on in Syria and the soon to be re-invasion of Iraq by ISIS over Ukraine as they wanted to OTL they would again.

The Western press by in large just wanted to believe and hope Putin would stop acting like a 19th century Imperialist on his own and had the view nothing is worse then another Cold War.

They didn't want to gin up Cold War feelings and they had the final say on how much the public sees and hears about it.

I think you are rather giving this question a stock answer than considering the actual implications of what is suggested in the OP. What I am saying is that the realistic consequences of a significantly bigger Russian campaign in Ukraine would pretty much force much of "the West" out of the "see no evil, hear no evil" stance that has been taken by many IOTL.

IMO, we have dodged several bullets with the situation in Ukraine, simply because the Russian invasion has been so limited, and thus the Ukrainian government and state apparatus has continued to work, if not normally, then at least looking like a fair imitation of normalcy. If the Russian invasion was a lot more extensive, it is very likely that the functioning of the Ukrainian state would be under major risk.

Again, there would be a lot more death, a lot more casualties. This would lead to more need for foreign aid, which would directly affect other European nations. The Ukrainian people and state would be asking and begging for more help, and the international organizations like the Red Cross and the OSCE would confirm that the situation is dire. The Ukrainian state apparatus itself would be in trouble. It was in trouble IOTL, in the days and months after the Maidan, but by and by it managed to rebound quite admirably, all the outside influence, corruption and disruption notwithstanding. After the Maidan, Ukraine managed more or less free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections within a year, making the government legitimate again if it was not strictly that after the events of the Maidan and the aftermath. ITTL, the fact that a lot bigger part of the nation is a battleground would mean that it is much harder for the Ukrainian state to function. The right-wing militias would have more comparative influence, and the central government would be under much more pressure. We would probably see elections postponed indefinitely in 2014, maybe even early 2015. This would sow doubt about the Yatsenuyk government and allow the opening to call it a "Fascist junta" in the Russian fashion. Many more would believe that Kiev is led by extremists who do not want a return to democracy. The situation would breed distrust and instability, and at the end of it we could see Kiev start losing control even in the areas it has managed to control IOTL (discounting those that ITTL would be controlled by Russian soldiers, or would be battlegrounds).

So, by the fall of 2014, ITTL the EU could be looking at a real possibility of a wholesale collapse of the Ukrainian state apparatus and the birth of a Ukraine-sized failed state on its eastern flank. A horrible prospect, one that could mean both a refugee crisis and a massive humanitarian disaster. Simply put, the mere possibility of this would make the European leaders and politicians stand up and take notice. They would be forced to take measures to support Ukraine and to oppose Russian actions. This would also be demanded by the European press reporting the events in Ukraine. Nobody who was privy to the situation in Europe could be as complacent as people have been IOTL, especially after the crisis of the first months passed and a "new normality" was built in Ukraine.

Like I said above, there is a level (and style) of Russian aggression in Ukraine the European politicians and press have been ready to disregard "not to rock the boat". I believe the Russian government has been counting on just that, and this is also a reason for its attempts to camouflage the events as local opposition and insurgency to create "plausible deniability" and muddy the waters. But there is a line beyond which this process would not work in the same way anymore, and a Russian attempt at much bigger than OTL gains in Ukraine would very likely cross that line. Russia openly waging a large-scale shooting war in Ukraine would mean just that.


Wait what? Outside of Crimea there are no muslims in Ukraine. And the Crimean Tatars aren't the kind that can be easily radicalized.

Our friend mack8 here seems to have bought into the Russian narrative and associated conspiracy theories about Ukraine. The US organizing the Euromaidan pretty much wholesale and the US/NATO directly supporting "CIA death squads", Fascist militias and bands of Jihadists in Ukraine are staples of the Russian narrative. The reference to the "Odessa massacre" (that is the Trade Unions House fire in Odessa in May 2014) is also a dead giveaway.
 
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