RUSSIA AND PUTIN
After the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 carrying 298 people was shot down over Ukraine, the scene was horrible – hundreds of bodies lay rotting in the hot July sun as pro-Russian militiamen used their weapons to keep European observers away. A Russian missile launcher was observed clandestinely leaving Ukraine for Russia unaccompanied by anything else. Only Vladimir Putin could have put an end to the issue, but he merely shrugged and pointed a finger at the Ukrainian government “Without a doubt, the state over whose territory this happened bears the responsibility for this frightful tragedy.”
Apparently, Putin had not gone too far. The state-controlled media at home buried Russia’s role in the disaster under an avalanche of anti-Western propaganda and leaders in Europe and the US found themselves stymied again by Putin’s brazenness. World leaders called on Putin to cooperate with the investigation. The least Putin could do was the most they could ask for – no deadlines, no red lines were drawn and no threats made. Despite certain proof that Russian weapons and Russian allies were behind the missile attack, the US could not rally Europe to stiffen sanctions against Putin. Nobody, especially the voters, are interested in military conflict with Russia or its puppets. A generation of Westerners have grown up in the happy belief that the Cold War ended long ago and only peace is in the future. They are slow to rally to the chore of once again containing Russia’s ambitions.
Putin’s overt goal seems to splinter Europe, rip up the NATO umbrella and restore Russian influence around the world. And Putin evidently will keep going as long as each new crisis only makes him stronger. The 21st century czar has mastered the dark art of stirring up problems that only he can solve, so that Western leaders find themselves scolding him one minute while pleading with him the next.
He supplies weapons and training for the armies of Syria, propping up the tyrant Assad, while Western leaders demand Assad’s ouster. Yet when Assad crossed the “red line” and used chemical weapons against his own people, Putin stepped in to broker the solution of Assad giving up his chemical weapons. The US backed away from air strikes in Syria and Putin’s ally, Assad, still reigns.
Other world leaders try to avoid crises; Putin feasts on them. When a pro-Western government came to power in Ukraine, Putin dashed in to annex Crimea – an act that redrew the borders of Europe and snatched away Ukraine’s territorial jewel. Within a month, Crimea was forgotten as, by then, Russia started the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, giving the West another crisis to deal with – and another problem that only Putin could reconcile. Russian arms and trainers keep the separatists supplied for the fight. And after the airliner shooting, once again the instigator was in the driver’s seat. The victims of Flight 17 were sent home only after the crash site had been thoroughly looted and trampled that investigators may never be able to prove exactly what happened.
Can the West stop someone who is determined to uphold the dreary habits of czars and Soviet leaders while projecting Russian exceptionalism and power? Putin doesn’t have much to worry about. Obama leads a war-weary nation and ruled out all military options. Europe is too divided and too dependent on Russian energy supplies to provoke any lasting rupture in relations. The only option is more sanctions but that is harder than it sounds. Putin has allies, most notably Italy, and it has lobbied against sanctions that would do serious damage to Russia’s economy. Cutting off trade would only inflict substantial pain on European corporations that benefit from it. Even if Europe matches Washington’s tough stance on sanctions, there is little evidence that they will work. They did not dissuade Russia from allegedly giving the separatists sophisticated SA-11 missiles, which probably shot down MH 17. Imposing sanctions may simply make Putin lash out more. It’s like poking a bear in the paw with a needle. Will it prevent him from ransacking your cooler? Probably not.” The first three rounds of US sanctions – targeting Russian officials, oligarchs and state-run companies – have done little to stop the bleeding in Ukraine. Russian weapons and paramilitary fighters continued flowing through holes at the border. Everything Putin has done has shown that he is absolutely all in on this issue. The Russians do not back down.
The prospect of isolation has only seemed to harden his resolve. Moscow’s ruling class, the part of Russian society that is a key pillar of support, hasn’t flinched. Putin’s public-approval rating is the envy of every Western leader, standing at 86% in late June, 20 points higher than when the Ukraine crisis began last winter.
There is no guarantee that tougher sanctions would help shove Putin off his pedestal. He thrives in crisis because he so effectively controls the narrative in Russia. Russia’s pro-Kremlin TV networks – both state-controlled and private – are the main source of information for 90% of Russians. This TV propaganda machine helps keep Putin secure in an era when other strongmen have been toppled in revolutions driven in part by social media. Apart from a state-backed crackdown this year on independent news websites, the Kremlin’s supporters have proved adept at drowning out online dissent and flooding the Russian-language web with Putinthink.
His media networks have cast the conflict in eastern Ukraine as a righteous struggle, pitting a resurgent Russia against a conniving West. The pro-Putin talking heads on these channels hit reliably similar themes, championing Russian dignity, Orthodox Christian values, the survival of the Russian-speaking world and the fall of the American menace. After MH 17, Putin set the tone, and a tide of conspiracy theories flooded the Russian media, all of them blaming Ukraine or its ally, the US, for shooting down the plane. With feelings for the US at an all-time low this wasn’t a difficult sell for a populace weaned on the dogmas of the Cold War. “It goes without saying that everything bad that happens to us is initiated by the United States.” Says Mikhail Zygar, editor in chief of Russia’s only independent news channel. “That’s something many Russian politicians or just ordinary Russians get with their mother’s milk,”
Putin’s designs, meanwhile, are far grander than Ukraine. He hopes the conflict on Russia’s western flank will create divisions within Europe that shrink American influence. His vision – referred to in April, at the peak of Russia’s euphoria over the conquest of Crimea – is the creation of a “greater Europe” that would stretch from Portugal to Russia’s Pacific coast, with Moscow as one of its centers of influence. By creating problems like Ukraine that only he can solve, he puts himself in the center of European politics. Russia’s vast oil and gas resources – on which Europe relies – only add to his influence.
The US, in this scenario, becomes a rival rather than an ally of Europe. “The United States is a major global player, and at a certain point it seemed to think that it was the only leader and a unipolar system was established. Now we can see that is not the case.” Putin said at the end of his appearance on a call-in show that day in April.
What happens in the aftermath of MH 17 will test Putin’s assessment of declining American power. Can the US and Europe form a united front against a country that virtually the entire world believes handed a loaded weapon to an unregulated militia. America can’t do it unilaterally, but need to work with the Europeans to help contain Russia. So far (Aug, 2014), there’s not much unity. France is proceeding with the sale of the warship to Russia, the helicopter carrier Mistral, against the direct objections of the US and the UK. European ministers did not bring European sanctions in line with those of the US, instead choosing to add a few names of rebel leaders and Russian technocrats. Even the Dutch, who lost 198 citizens, did not seem keen to take the lead. The Dutch led investigation may take years and will be complicated by the fact the people likely responsible for the disaster – the rebel fighters – had several days to remove evidence of their culpability.
For now, Vladimir Putin answers to virtually no one. His command of the Russian airwaves will help him manage any blowback at home, spinning even the most damning evidence as part of an ancient American conspiracy. The more the world picks on him and Russia, the ore it feeds a Russian will to push back, out of a sense of pride and victimhood. Isolation will still be the West’s only means of attack, and if Europe has lacked the will to impose it after Syria, after Crimea and even amid the global outrage over MH 17, it is unlikely to take action. Putin has played this game before. He need only bide his time for the West’s own inaction to clear him.