Gauging the Possibilities of Russian Invasion of Kharkiv

By IndraStra Global Editorial Team

Cover Image Attribute: Freedom Square, Kharkiv, Ukraine / Konstantin Brizhnichenko, Wikimedia Commons

By IndraStra Global Editorial Team

On January 21, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an interview, has identified Kharkiv - the 2nd largest city of Ukraine with a surrounding region that has a collective population of almost 2.7 million people, as a possible target of a Russian invasion (a hypothetical scenario with high possibilities). The industrial city of Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, is home to tank, aircraft, and tractor factories, lies 42 kilometers (26 miles) from the Russian border. Before 2014, Kharkiv’s close proximity to Russia was a beneficial source of cross-border trade and people-to-people ties, but this proximity has since become a security concern. Once an international transportation and trade hub that benefited from its frontier position, the region of Kharkiv has turned into a fortress.

"I will say realistically if Russia decides to enhance their escalation, of course, they are going to do this on those territories where historically there are people who used to have family links to Russia," Zelenskyy had said during the interview. He further added, "Kharkiv, which is under Ukraine government control, could be occupied. Russia needs a pretext: They will say that they are protecting the Russian-speaking population."

However, according to Nils Adler of Al Jazeera, "there would be nothing to indicate that the city is at the forefront of a potential invasion. Instead, cafés and restaurants are packed, a winter fairground is in full swing, and international students throng the streets. But the threat of an attack is something that Kharkiv residents have had to face and learned to live with since Russian-backed separatists invaded Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014".

According to Yuliya Bidenko, a political science professor at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, “When you have … neighbors [like Russia] you are worrying frequently. We have good hope that he [Putin] is bluffing … I don’t think [the] Russian population is so into wide-scale war with Ukraine, but they have another narrative right now that Ukraine isn’t so important, it just kind of grounds to fight with the Americans.” 

Bidenko said the Ukrainian military is better equipped than it was in 2014. But they are staring down a force of more than 100,000 Russian troops. She said if an invasion does occur it could result in a refugee crisis as people in Ukraine attempt to leave. “It could be up to 10 million that would like to escape to Europe from this war.”

But, if we look at it from Russia's point of view, the Kremlin may explore an option to create a "destabilized buffer state" with Kharkiv* (if not a fully integrated Russian city), as the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Since the city has a large Russian-speaking population, there is a high chance of strong local support for Russia. In a 2015 study, analysis of the responses by socio-demographic categories indicated that for ethnic Russians, residents of the oblasts of Kharkiv (and Odesa), older and poorer residents, and especially for those who retain a nostalgic positive opinion about the Soviet Union, the motivations and aims of the Novorossiya project had significant support.

Image Attribute: A memorial to 23 August 1943, the end of German occupation during World War II in Kharkiv, Ukraine / Photo taken by Rahul Guhathakurta (co-founder of IndraStra Global) during his 3 months stay in Kharkiv in the year 2008, Wikimedia Commons

With such support in various pockets of Kharkiv oblast, Russia would definitely try to explore all options to keep a prospective NATO state with whom it shares a porous border, in a "tight spot". Kharkiv as a city has very high importance because it gives easy access to the strategic Moscow region via the M2 highway and to Voronezh, an HQ of the Steppe Military District via 14K-2 highway. As we speak, a large number of Russian troops have remained amassed at the Ukrainian border (which it could easily double on relatively short notice), despite warnings from President Joe Biden and European leaders of serious consequences should Putin move ahead with an invasion. And US intelligence findings in December estimated that Russia could begin a military offensive in Ukraine "as soon as early 2022."

Though Ukraine has been building a series of frontier fences and trenches with Russia at the border along with the Kharkiv oblast in Hoptivka. "Project Wall" also known as "The European Rampart," the barrier was intended to fortify a significant section of Ukraine's porous eastern frontier while both literally and symbolically separating the country from its Soviet-era hegemon. But, the question is the survivability of such effort at the time of the real invasion. It may give Ukrainian border guards a.k.a. Derzhavna Prykordonna Sluzhba Ukrayiny (DPSU) a headstart to organize the first line of defense while they wait for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to arrive.

Kharkiv's fate is now beyond the reasonings of Ukraine's NATO membership. For Ukraine, it might be a pawn to spare and for Russia, it is nothing more than a pawn to gain. But, in a true sense, the people of the city will endure the real sufferings. At most, they can or might participate in territorial defense battalions but when it comes to sitting at the actual negotiation table, they will clearly and dearly miss the late Hennadiy Kernes, the former mayor of the city, in 2014, who turned himself away from the pro-Russia Yanukovych faction and helped thwart Kremlin-backed efforts to establish a separatist republic in Kharkiv. 

*Note 1: Kharkiv withstood an initial attempt by pro-Russia separatists to seize control in 2014. At that time ordeal, the citizens of the city made clear, even the regional division did not really threaten Ukrainian national unity: most of the east-southern residents speaking primarily Russian allied with their fellow citizens rather than their linguistic "brethren" across the border.

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