Putin Escalates the Threat of War Against Ukraine
by Matthew Dubas
Russia’s autocrat president, Vladimir Putin, continues his course of destabilizing Ukraine with the latest buildup of troops and warships near Ukraine’s land and maritime borders. Russia claims the ground forces, naval vessels (numbering near 50), as well as military aircraft and helicopters are part of planned military drills and readiness exercises, which are currently underway.
Ukraine estimates Russia has 41,000 along the eastern border with Ukraine and an additional 42,000 in Russia-annexed Crimea. Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, claims the increased military activity is also in response to increased NATO and U.S. presence in the Black Sea region. The latest escalation ups the threat of war, which saves face for Putin and his Kremlin-loyal security forces cronies who have perpetuated Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and the war-torn regions of the Donbas, namely Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
If Russia was to back down, it would cause distrust among the security forces and political elites of Putin’s commitment toward bringing Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence, also known as the “Russki Mir” (Russian World) ideology.
U.S. President Joseph Biden on April 15 ordered a new round of economic sanctions (targeting more than 30 Russian entities and individuals, and six Russian tech firms believed to provide support to Russian intelligence, as well as a prohibition on U.S. financial institutions participating in the trade of bonds used by the Russian government after June 14, 2021) in response to Russia’s latest large-scale cyberattack (which targeted U.S. tech firm SolarWinds as well as the Department of Homeland Security and the Treasury Department) and Moscow’s meddling in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Messrs. Biden and Putin held a telephone conference on April 13, where Mr. Biden reiterated U.S support for Ukraine and called for Russia to de-escalate the situation while extending an olive branch to host a summit with Mr. Putin in a third country in the coming months.
The U.S. initiative also includes an increase in costs for Russia because of its continued occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula (which is going on seven years), and for Russia’s role in offering bounties for attacks against U.S. and coalition military personnel in Afghanistan. Other measures from the U.S. include expelling 10 personnel from the Russian diplomatic mission in the U.S. The sanctions also leave open the possibility “to expand sovereign debt sanctions on Russia as appropriate,” which is seen as a signal to the Putin regime of the seriousness and willingness of the Biden administration to apply further measures, while Mr. Biden has personally indicated that these measures are not intended to escalate the situation.
The U.S. also announced it was sending two warships to the Black Sea on April 14 and April 15 to remain there until May 4 and May 5, but that plan has been scrapped and could threaten the clarity and effectiveness of the message that Mr. Biden intended to send to Mr. Putin. Those two warships remain outside the Black Sea, anchored off the island of Crete.
No new sanctions from the Biden administration have been announced related to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
With its latest move, Russia shows that it is becoming increasingly desperate, as countries like Turkey continue to back Ukraine’s claim to Crimea. Turkey maintains that it has not taken sides in the conflict, while at the same time voicing support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. In response to Turkey, Russia has banned commercial flights from Turkey to Russia. Turkey has shown its technological superiority in Nagorno-Karabakh in the on-and-off conflict between Armenia (backed by Russia) and Azerbaijan (backed by Turkey) when it comes to drone warfare. As a NATO member, Russia has limited ways of causing problems for Turkey without an overt or covert military attack (which would trigger a NATO military response), although Russia continues to weaponize information warfare and cyber warfare against NATO members.
Turkey and Ukraine signed a joint declaration on April 10 on deepening bilateral cooperation. Among the areas of cooperation outlined in the declaration were: the establishment of a Crimea Platform as a format for resolving Russia’s annexation of Crimea; efforts to improve the living conditions of Ukrainian citizens, in particular Crimean Tatars who have been forced from their indigenous homeland Crimea as a result of Russia’s occupation of the Crimean Peninsula; protect human rights in Crimea and the release of all illegally detained citizens of Ukraine, including Crimean Tatars; Turkey’s support for a NATO MAP; and areas of cooperation for stability and security in the Black Sea region.
Observers have also noted that Russia’s escalation against Ukraine could set up an even bigger war, where Russia attacks Ukraine and simultaneously China attacks Taiwan, rendering U.S. and international responses ineffective at best. This is a credible scenario, and one that would unfortunately catch the international community unprepared to adequately respond to such a reality – a war against both China and Russia. Click here for additional information.
Ukraine, NATO and EU responses
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on April 13 reminded Mr. Putin that the Western alliance (NATO), not Moscow, would decide whether Ukraine joins the alliance in the future. “It is for the 30 NATO allies to decide when Ukraine is ready for membership,” he said in Kyiv. “Russia is now trying to reestablish some kind of sphere of influence where they try to decide what neighbors can do.”
Ukraine is seeking a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) as a stepping stone to membership in the alliance, which has angered Mr. Putin since 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia. It was the same year that NATO was hoped to extend a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia at the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest.
Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, represented by their respective foreign affairs ministers to Ukraine for a joint working visit, have all voiced support for Ukraine, and stand ready to act as advocates for Ukraine’s interests toward an EU response. Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis on April 15 in Kyiv underscored: “We want to send a clear message to Russia that it must de-escalate the situation, cease its actions and return to the only path that we see as effective – the political path, negotiations in the Minsk format and the Normandy format. Because after crossing the ‘red lines,’ political paths will be less realistic, and I completely agree with those who say that the consequences cannot be avoided.”
Latvia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkevics called on the EU to prepare for the introduction of sectoral sanctions against Russia in the event of a military attack on Ukraine. He also noted that Russia was solely responsible for the destabilizing actions in the region.
Blinken and Kuleba
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a statement on April 13 prior to his meeting with Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba, reiterated the U.S. position that it stands firmly behind the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, calling Russia’s latest escalation a “very provocative action… seeing the largest concentration of Russian forces on Ukraine’s border since 2014,” and voiced concern from both the U.S.
Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba, prior to his meeting with Secretary Blinken, reminded that the Russian military escalation is not only along the border of Ukraine, but along the border of the democratic world, and that, he underscored, was the crux of the conflict – the war over democracy versus authoritarianism.
Timing
Significantly, these events are transpiring on the 80th anniversary of the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact, which was signed on April 12, 1941, that set up Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. However, with that many Russian warships in the Black Sea, it could be Russia’s Navy that ends up incapacitated.
Matthew Dubas is editorial staffer for The Ukrainian Weekly newspaper. The opinions expressed by him in this piece are his own and do not represent the editorial position of the newspaper or its publisher.
Putin photo credit: http://www.kremlin.ru
Dubas photo: Matthew Dubas