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Ukraine Provides a Test Case of Russia's Hybrid Warfare Strategy

undefined and Senior Eurasia Analyst
Eugene Chausovsky
Senior Eurasia Analyst, Stratfor

Mar 28, 2019 | 09:00 GMT

Passersby walk past a giant electoral poster of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko displayed on a building in central Kiev on March 22, 2019.

Passersby walk past a giant electoral poster of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko displayed on a building in central Kiev on March 22. Regardless of who wins Ukraine's presidential election on March 31, the country won't shift from its newfound Western orientation.

(SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • Ukraine will provide a laboratory for the evolution of Russia's hybrid warfare strategy as Moscow adjusts its tactics and expands the scope of such actions around the world. 
  • The competition over Ukraine will factor heavily into the broader Russia-West standoff, which is only likely to intensify in the coming years.
  • But regardless of who wins Ukraine's presidential elections on March 31, the country will maintain its orientation to the West, thereby highlighting the limitations of Russia's hybrid strategy. 
 

On March 31, Ukrainians will head to the polls for one of the most pivotal and unusual elections in the country's post-Soviet history. This will be the first presidential election since the immediate aftermath of the country's Western-backed Euromaidan uprising in 2014, in which large-scale protests overthrew pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, clearing a path for the pro-Western Petro Poroshenko to capture the post in May 2014. But five years after Euromaidan, Ukraine has yet to find its political footing, as evidenced by the fact that Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko -- two familiar faces in Ukraine's political scene -- are trailing Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a 41-year-old TV star and comedian with no previous political experience, by a wide margin. But regardless of who wins the election, one thing is clear: Ukraine's pro-Western orientation is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Following Euromaidan, Ukraine became ground zero...

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