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As Russian troops stand poised to yet again invade Ukraine, much attention has been focused in recent days on how to avoid escalation of the conflict. Recent (and likely ongoing) escalations in cyberattacks on Ukraine suggest that this conflict will be unfortunately severe in the digital domain. And unlike a ground invasion, the U.S. government has warned that the digital conflict zone may expand to include the United States, as well. Years of Russian cyber probing and preparing the environment could well culminate in significant and potentially destructive attacks against private-sector American interests in the coming weeks and months.

If this level of vulnerability feels intolerable, good it should. But how did we get here? And what are the moves needed to avoid disaster? To start, its critical to understand how President Vladimir Putin has experimented with 21st Century technical methods to contribute to achieving his longstanding vision for Russia.

Russias motives are conventional enough. In April 2005, Putin called the fall of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century and a genuine tragedyfor the Russian people. This core belief has guided many of Russias actions since. Today, the drums of war are unfortunately beating loudly in Europe, as Putin seeks to forcibly return more of Russias periphery back under formal control and push back on perceived Western encroachment.

While there are a number of factors driving why Russia has chosen now as the time to increase its aggression against Ukraine and assert itself in Europe more broadly its asymmetric capabilities in areas like cyber certainly give it a broader set of tools to shape the outcomes in its favor.

Russias geopolitical position with a waning population base and woeful economic situation drives its leadership to find ways to reassert itself on the global stage. Russian leaders know they cant compete conventionally, so they turn to more easily accessible and, as it turns out, immensely powerful and effective asymmetric tools. Their disinformation campaigns have done much to contribute to the pre-existing societal fissures here in the United States, exacerbating our fracturing politics in keeping with standard Russian intelligence practices. Indeed Russian leadership likely sees an opportunity with the West as distracted by the COVID pandemic and internal turmoil that it sometimes helps sow.

But Putins long embrace of asymmetrical methods means Russia has been preparing for this moment for years. There is a familiarity to these activities: old means and tools from the Soviet era that have taken on a new face through the manipulation of twenty-first-century digital tools and vulnerabilities. And in recent years, it has used Ukraine, Libya, the Central African Republic, Syria, and other contested spaces as testing grounds for its information operations and damaging cyber capabilities.

Today, Russian actors have deployed a vast array of techniques for active measures to confuse, sow doubt, and delegitimize basic democratic institutions. The mercenaries and clandestine agents Russia is deploying into Ukraine have honed their skills in hybrid battlespaces abroad, using a mix of deception and kinetic action, deftly mixed with deniable influence operations and offensive cyber actions.

In cyberspace, Russia has graduated from its then-unprecedented 2007 cyberattack on Estonia and later NotPetya-style cyber attacks, which targeted Ukrainian utilities, ministries, banks, and journalists, which spilled over into one of the most costly cyberattacks in history to date. Russian intelligence services have been found hacking into U.S. critical infrastructure systems for some time now as wellyet, to date, without significant kinetic or deleterious impact or actions (unlike in Ukraine and elsewhere as detailed in books like Andy Greenbergs Sandworm). Theyve tested the reactions of the United States and its Allies, learned what they can get away with, and are pressing ever further as NATO countries debate what to do about Ukraine.

In sum, Russia has done its reconnaissance and likely pre-placed tools it may want to use against countries like the United States on a rainy day. That day may soon arrive.

As Russia ramps up its aggression against Ukraine, the United States has threatened a devastating economic response as part of the escalatory ladder (how nations methodically raise the stakes in the hopes of deterring an adversary in a conflict) toward an ever-increasingly more dangerous and likely violent resolution. What often goes unsaid is that Russian cyber capabilities are attempts at their own form of deterrence. Those preparatory activities Russia has engaged in over the years, as noted above, would allow those cyber eggs to hatch and the consequences to come home to roost here in America.

The U.S. government has explicitly and broadly warned that Russia may attack American private industry in response to those potentially severe U.S. sanctions. It is highly unlikely, knowing the sophistication of Russian actors in this space, that these attacks would be brazen, or even immediate. While they can be sloppy and imprecise at times (see NotPetya), their capabilities will likely allow them to meddle with our critical infrastructure and private industry via supply-chain attacks and other indirect and difficult-to-attribute means. In the interim, companies and service providers could face significant damage and deleterious downtime. If the past has been a nuisance, the near term portends potentially much greater negative economic impact as Putin and his oligarchs continue to press their longstanding agenda.

Hope remains that Russia will not continue to ramp up its aggression, and will indeed find off-ramps, avoiding these various scenarios. We should all hope that none of this will ever unfold. It is prudent however, indeed overdue at this point, that industry ensure that it takes the appropriate steps to protect itself from what we must now consider a potentially highly likely attack doubling down on multi-factor authentication, segmenting networks, maintaining backups, gaming out crisis response plans, and closing off access to only those with real need. What is happening with Ukraine seems a world apart, but with a few clicks, the impact may end up right here at home.

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How the conflict in Ukraine threatens US cybersecurity - TechCrunch

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They push buttons, Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, says. What button of ours are they pushing here? What are they trying to get us to do? Vladimir Putin is gesturing toward a costly invasion of Ukraine, on the false pretext of protecting Russian-language speakers in the country. Why? In a wide-ranging conversation, Snyder talks with David Remnick about how to understand Russias aggression, the idea (advanced by Putin) that Ukraine historically and rightfully belongs to Russia, and the dictators far-reaching goal of destabilizing NATO. Snyder is the author of Bloodlands, a history of the Second World War, and also The Road to Unfreedom and On Tyrannywhich warn of the dangers that imperil American democracy. Running an oligarchy in which corruption is universal, Putin is basically stuck with spectacle, distractionsthe old bread and circuses ideabut also is working from a situation where you want to bring other countries down to your level, Snyder says. With that, you can understand their intervention in our elections or the way they talk about us: they want to bring out the elements of us, both rhetorically and in reality, that are most like the way they run the country. Putins governance of Russia and his foreign policy, in other words, are intricately entangled. I tend to think [the threat of invasion] is about the Biden Administration, in a pretty fundamental way, Snyder says. If your goal is to undermine NATOlets accept that that is their sincere goalwho do you want to be President? Trump. The crisis, he points out, puts Biden in a very bad position. Its very hard for Biden to look strong.... Insofar as there is a strategy here, its about dividing NATO members and putting pressure on the Biden Administration.

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Russias Intentions in Ukraineand America - The New Yorker

Kristina Kvien is the U.S. charge d'affaires in Kyiv, the top American official on the ground in the Ukrainian capital. She estimates that there are more than 100,000 Russian troops at the border to Ukraine, and that number is growing. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Kristina Kvien is the U.S. charge d'affaires in Kyiv, the top American official on the ground in the Ukrainian capital. She estimates that there are more than 100,000 Russian troops at the border to Ukraine, and that number is growing.

KYIV, Ukraine It's hard to imagine higher stakes than the ones right now for the U.S. charge d'affaires, who is currently the top American official on the ground in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

This week, with all eyes on the Russian border, Kristina Kvien is juggling talks with fellow diplomats and visiting members of Congress.

Her current estimate is Russian President Vladimir Putin has more than 100,000 troops at the border to Ukraine, and that number is growing.

"The troop buildup is continuing. It's not continuing at a rapid pace, but it is continuing at a regular pace," Kvien told NPR's All Things Considered.

Asked how concerned she is about the prospect of an imminent invasion, Kvien's response was simple: "We are very concerned."

"First of all, the number of troops and materiel that the Russians have at the border could allow them to do some sort of incursion at any time," she said. "So, when President Biden says that action is imminent, it's because there are enough now to do some sort of action."

Kvien is confident that if that were to happen, Ukraine's military would put up a significant fight. They are well-trained, well-equipped and very motivated, she said.

A Ukrainian serviceman works to fix a trench that was damaged by a mortar strike at a front line position in the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine on Friday. Vadim Ghirda/AP hide caption

A Ukrainian serviceman works to fix a trench that was damaged by a mortar strike at a front line position in the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine on Friday.

"Ukrainians in general and the Ukrainian military are very patriotic. They love Ukraine. They're willing to fight to save it. And I anticipate that they would do so and they would do so with great vigor."

While the situation appears to be a deadlock, with the U.S. steadfast in its refusal to Russia's demand that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO, Kvien is still hopeful a diplomatic solution is on the table.

The choice remains with Russia, she said.

"They have two paths they can take. The first, which is obviously the one that we and the Ukrainians very strongly prefer, is the path of diplomacy and discussion. The other path is the path of Russian aggression. And make no mistake about it, if Russia takes the path of aggression, it will face extremely severe consequences immediately."

"We have arrayed a group of sanctions and export controls that would have a very severe impact on Russia's economy, and we would implement those the moment that Russia takes aggressive action against Ukraine."

This is a message two visiting U.S. congressmen can get behind.

Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee (left) and Gregory Meeks of New York are members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and are currently in Kyiv. They say what is most important now is unity among Ukraine and its allies. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee (left) and Gregory Meeks of New York are members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and are currently in Kyiv. They say what is most important now is unity among Ukraine and its allies.

Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Mark Green, R-Tenn., are both members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and are in Kyiv.

They say while sanctions and whether they are implemented before or after any invasion remain an ongoing discussion, what is most important now is unity among Ukraine and its allies.

"Because the way Putin wins, is if he can divide us," Meeks said. "He would love to divide some of our NATO allies and some of our EU allies, and Ukrainians, divide us on this issue, that would be a victory for him. So we can't allow that to happen."

Green agreed, and said the calculation for the United States was an easy one.

"[Putin] put troops on the border of a NATO ally. And that changes the game for me. ... We're compelled to work to a diplomatic solution here as quickly and as effectively as we can," he said.

As for what to look for next, Kvien said the U.S. was preparing for any moves and was waiting to hear from Putin himself.

"When taking information from Russia, frankly, it's President Putin you need to listen to, and he hasn't spoken yet, so we're waiting for him to speak out," she said. "We're hoping that he does choose a diplomatic path. If he does, I think we have a lot of things we can talk about."

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Russia has just two options in front of it, says the top U.S. official in Ukraine - NPR

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council via a videoconference at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on Friday. Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council via a videoconference at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on Friday.

With more than 100,000 Russian troops circling the Ukrainian border, prompting formal diplomatic engagement from the United States and NATO, a 30-year-old foreign policy debate has made a return to center stage.

The question: Should NATO, the mutual defense pact formed in the wake of World War II that has long served to represent Western interests and counter Russia's influence in Europe, expand eastward?

NATO's founding articles declare that any European country that is able to meet the alliance's criteria for membership can join. This includes Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies in Europe have repeatedly said they are committed to that "open-door" policy.

But in the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO's eastward march represents decades of broken promises from the West to Moscow.

"You promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly," Putin said at a news conference in December.

The U.S. says a ban on expansion was never on the table. But Russia insists it was and now, Putin is demanding a permanent ban on Ukraine from joining the pact.

"Unsurprisingly, when you look at the evidence, what happened is somewhere in between," said Mary Sarotte, a post-Cold War historian whose book about those negotiations, Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate, was published last fall.

For the first four decades of NATO's existence, the treaty represented the U.S., Canada and America's closest allies in Western and southern Europe. On the other side of the Iron Curtain were the Soviet Union and its allies in Central and Eastern Europe, including the former East Germany.

But that long-standing divide was challenged in 1989 when anti-communist protests spread across East Germany and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Early in the effort to reunify Germany, U.S. officials wrestled with the question of Soviet control of the east: What could entice Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to withdraw?

"The Americans guess that maybe what Gorbachev wants in exchange for letting Germany unify is a promise that NATO will not expand eastward," Sarotte said. "And so Secretary of State [James] Baker, in a speculative way in an early stage of negotiations, says to Gorbachev, 'How about this idea: How about you let your half of Germany go, and we agree to move that one piece forward?' "

But President George H.W. Bush rejected the idea, and when more formal negotiations began later in 1990, a ban on NATO expansion was never actually offered, Sarotte said.

There is some disagreement about what took place during the Baker-Gorbachev talks in February 1990. Some say that when Baker suggested that NATO shift not "one inch" to the east, he intended to refer only to East Germany, because neither side had begun to think about NATO expansion beyond that.

Seemingly conflicting comments from U.S. officials and Gorbachev made years later do not help clear this up. (Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as recently as Friday that "nobody was even imagining Czechoslovakia or Poland or Hungary at that time.")

The historical record shows otherwise, according to Sarotte. Contemporaneous notes, letters, speeches and interviews show that Western leaders were, in fact, already contemplating NATO enlargement by the time the February 1990 talks took place, she says.

What is not in dispute: Gorbachev later agreed to withdraw from East Germany in exchange for financial concessions, in a treaty that did not place limits on the future expansion of NATO.

"But there's this residual bitterness afterwards. Still, to this day, Putin is saying, 'Look, there was this other offer on the table, right?' " Sarotte said. "And that's sort of factually accurate in a narrow sense, but it doesn't reflect the reality of the treaty."

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the NATO expansion question became more urgent both for the U.S. looking to cement its influence in Europe and for countries emerging from communist control, like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

"They believed that the United States could bring them into the West, which was what they wanted. And they believed that the United States could protect them if Russia ever became aggressive again," said James Goldgeier, an American University professor who has written extensively about NATO.

From the beginning, Russia strongly objected to NATO's borders creeping closer to its territory. In 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin tried to secure a guarantee from President Bill Clinton that NATO would not add any former Soviet republics. Clinton refused.

The U.S. hoped that its financial support, along with diplomatic overtures from NATO, could be enough to counterbalance Russia's displeasure over expansion but ultimately, that didn't work, Goldgeier said.

Over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, NATO expanded three times: first to add the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland; then seven more countries even farther east, including the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and finally with Albania and Croatia in 2009.

"Obviously, the more it did to stabilize the situation in central and Eastern Europe and bring them into the West, the more it antagonized the Russians," he said.

Ukraine, as the largest former Soviet republic in Europe besides Russia itself, has been a key part of alliance talks since it declared independence from the USSR in 1991. In the three decades since, NATO expansion has put four members on Ukraine's borders.

"The Russians were always concerned about how far NATO enlargement was going to go. It's one thing for Poland to come in, or the Czech Republic to come in. That's not such a big deal. But there was always a concern about Ukraine," Goldgeier said.

People going about their day in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, earlier this week. More Ukrainians have been looking toward the West as Russia has become aggressive. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Putin himself has long said that he believes Ukrainians and Russians to be a single people, unified by language, culture and religion. In July 2021, he wrote a long essay about the "historical unity" between the two nations.

For the U.S. and its Western allies, a successful and independent Ukraine was a potent potential symbol that Russia's time as a powerful empire had come to an end.

During the early 2000s, President George W. Bush pushed for Ukraine to become a NATO member. France and Germany opposed it, fearing escalation with Russia.

The result was a "worst of all worlds" compromise in 2008, Goldgeier said: a promise that Ukraine would eventually join NATO, but without any concrete timeline or pathway to do so.

When the compromise was announced, some analysts were surprised that "there was not this major temper tantrum" from Putin and Russia, said Rose Gottemoeller, an American diplomat who served as deputy secretary general of NATO from 2016 to 2019.

"It needed another 15 years before the major temper tantrum ensued. Unfortunately, we're experiencing it now," Gottemoeller said.

Ukraine cannot imminently join NATO. Aspiring members are asked to meet various conditions before they are allowed to begin the process of joining via a "Membership Action Plan." NATO allies have not yet granted that to Ukraine and have long appeared uninterested in offering, in part because of political complications with Russia.

Now, Russia's protests over Ukraine's future membership have put the U.S. and NATO in a difficult spot over NATO's "open-door" policy.

"The louder Moscow protested, the more determined western capitals became to deny Russia what was seen as a veto over alliance decision-making," Samuel Charap, a Russia specialist at Rand Corp., wrote in the Financial Times earlier this month.

And the more Putin has tried to control Ukraine and its foreign policy, the more he has pushed Ukrainians themselves to look toward the West, experts said.

Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 was a major turning point. Afterward, popular support for joining NATO rose among Ukrainians, who had once been more ambivalent about the alliance.

"Putin has constructed in his head and in his heart, perhaps, the idea that NATO is encircling him, that that has always been the intention," said Rice, speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations panel on Friday. "Ukraine is moving closer to the West but it's doing it because the Russians have been annexing Ukrainian territory and threatening the Ukrainians."

(In annexing Crimea, Russia itself broke a promise: In the Budapest Memorandum, a treaty Russia signed with the U.S. and U.K. in 1994, it committed "to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" in exchange for Ukraine's denuclearization.)

None of that has deterred Putin, for whom Ukraine is "personal," says Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior U.S. intelligence officer now with the Center for a New American Security.

"Putin, over his 22 years now in power, has tried and failed repeatedly to bring Ukraine back into the fold. And I think he senses that now is his time to take care of this unfinished business," she told NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday.

With the U.S. internally divided over domestic politics and Germany's new government not yet settled on policy positions after the departure of longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin "senses that this is a good time to push matters," said Sarotte.

"He's basically holding Ukraine hostage to force a do-over of these NATO expansion battles," she said.

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Explaining NATO and Ukraine: How a 30-year-old debate still drives Putin today - NPR

Life kept going on and still keeps going on the way it has been. And that is terrifying.

Iryna Manzholenko| Opinion contributor

Several weeks ago, people in Kyiv were preoccupied with buying gifts, decorating their houses and wrapping up all their arrangements for the winter holiday season.I was the same way until one of my friends shared her concerns about the accumulation of Russian forces at theborder.

Still, it didn't hit me. I figured surely he isn't so sick in the head that he would dare to try to take over my country.

Life kept going on and still keeps going on the way it has been. People go to work, take care of their kids, have a glass of wine on the weekend and that is terrifying. That illusive peace blurs our vision of the real danger lurking behind our backs.

This bizarre normalcy of life took my mind off the current state of affairs in Ukraine. You naturally want to distance yourself from all the negativity, especially during the festive season. Plus, I dont watch TV, so I didnt have daily exposure to news to feed my anxiety.

However, the more I started digging into the situation, the more my concerns grew. The rate of escalation on the border seemed to be so steady that I started wondering whether it may be more than just an intimidation game. And it kept piling on: military friends talking about possible directions of invasion, American exchange students and friends putting their plans in Ukraine on hold and moving out of the country, videos about preparation for possible military actions, and international friends wondering whether I was OK and asking about my backup plan.

A detailed look: How US and its allies could respond to Russian invasion of Ukraine

Backup plan? Why would I have one of those?

Then I gave it a second thought and began to work out when and how I would react.

But I do not plan to leave my country.

America has a duty to act: Putin plans to crush liberty in Ukraine. Free World must unite to stop him.

The main reason I plan to stay here is that I love Ukraine, and I do believe my country has the potential to become a powerful state. Ukraine is a young country that became independent from the Soviet Union only in 1991. And it takes time and effort to establish our own way of life economically and culturally, especially with neighbors constantly trying to hinder that process.

Although I do not plan to leave my county, I should be prepared for any course of events. Some basic things such as keeping enough cash and a package of documents and essentials ready to go calm me and bring a sense of stability in volatile times. Knowing that my family members are instructed about their actions on the invasion also reassures me.

Alexander Vindman: US can stop the horror of a Putin war in Ukraine. But time is running out.

The currentsituation is messed up in all respects.

On the one hand, I see Ukrainians rushing out of the metro station to go to work, kids running around,laughing at some silly jokes, and restaurants and venues providing fantastic service to the best of their ability. On the other hand, I see news and articles about Russian troops and weapons at the border, international negotiationsand possible sanctions imposed on Russia if it invades Ukraine.

There is still time: Biden needs to get Ukraine right. America's security depends on it.

It sometimes feels like I am a "Stranger Things" character who keeps switching from one reality to another with constant clashes of parallel universes. I would be content and composed while simultaneously having a sensation of something evil dwelling just across the eastern border.

Honestly, I am readyfor the season finale, when the good overtakes the bad and we, the people of Ukraine, can live our best lives in our sovereign, progressive and peaceful country.

Iryna Manzholenko is a resident ofKyiv, Ukraine, who works as a military interpreter.

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Daily life in Kyiv these days feels a lot like if 'Stranger Things' had a Ukraine edition - USA TODAY