The Russian Challenge

The Russian Challenge
Russian and Western Expectations
which would require its creative interpretation in the
light of shared aims, it seems unlikely to prove more than a
temporary and partially respected ceasefire.
The West
EU and US sanctions against Russia have had an
ambivalent effect on Russia so far. They have on the one
hand consolidated majority domestic support for Putin,
at least over the short term. On the other, they have
played into pre-existing Russian economic problems
clearly linked to Russian failures to address long-standing
structural economic and political problems. Their effect,
if maintained, is likely to increase over the next couple
of years. Their reach is enhanced beyond their detailed
provisions by the need for Western enterprises to interpret
them broadly so as to avoid possible difficulties with their
own authorities, and by Moscow’s imposition of countersanctions.
All concerned must consider whether wider
sanctions might at some stage be imposed in response to
further aggressive Russian actions.
The problem for the EU, however – for now at least – is to
maintain sanctions at their present level, not whether or not
to increase their range or severity. Keeping them at their
present level has been linked to an uncertain yardstick,
the implementation of Minsk II. European judgments and
expectations have varied from alarm to something closer to
complacency as particular shocks such as the downing of
Flight MH17 or clear Russian military interference in eastern
Ukraine give way to relative calm in Donbas. Little has been
said of Russian-induced repression in Crimea, whose fate was
barely considered during the discussions leading to Minsk
II. There can be no certainty over how the EU would reach
a workable consensus by the end of the year on allowing EU
sanctions to be eased or lifted, based on whether Minsk II
had or had not been sufficiently fulfilled by Moscow’s Donbas
proxies or Kyiv, or Moscow itself. Opinion in Washington, for
that matter, might still be divided, too. Congress is minded to
be tough, but the executive arm far less so.
Events may of course weaken the link between maintaining
sanctions and Minsk II, but the fact that such a link now
exists gives a focus to the purpose of sanctions that was
lacking before. Their original aim was to punish the
Kremlin and those directly implicated in Putin’s decisionmaking
for the seizure of Crimea, and they were increased
in response to subsequent Russian adventures in eastern
Ukraine. President Barack Obama foreswore direct military
intervention from the beginning, and besides, no European
countries would have supported him had he done otherwise.
The general aim, which Chancellor Angela Merkel has
articulated with particular force, was for the West to respond
as effectively as possible to Russia’s challenge to the post-
Cold War international order, and to restore its proper
framework for the security of the whole of the European
continent. That aim remains in force, along with the
restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine itself. But
defining Western aims in more detail has proved difficult.
As noted earlier, there are many in the West who have
been seduced by the Russian line that Moscow has been
betrayed by the West over the years, and in particular by the
enlargement of NATO. According to this logic, the possibility
of Ukraine joining NATO was a significant factor in
precipitating Russia’s direct intervention and subsequently
its (officially denied but patently obvious) incursion into
Luhansk and Donetsk. It is supposed therefore that an
undertaking never to accept Ukraine into NATO, whatever
the wishes of Kyiv might be now or later, together with
(in most such propositions) at least de facto acceptance of
Moscow’s occupation of Crimea, is an essential element
of an East–West negotiated settlement of the crisis in and
around Ukraine. It is certainly the case that Moscow has
built up a grievance narrative over the years, including over
NATO enlargement, and that this narrative has satisfying
force for many Russians. That is a fact, irrespective of the
truth of the tale, just as it was a fact that many Germans
in the interwar years believed in the legend of the Stab in
the Back. It does not at all follow, however, that accepting
Ukraine into NATO was ever a real possibility in 2013 or
that a promise now never to do so would be a viable part of
a settlement negotiated between Russia and the Western
powers and forced on Ukraine. To take that approach would
in any case be to admit Moscow’s right to decide Ukraine’s
future, by force if need be.
Germany has moved into the lead in the West in
determining policies towards Russia and the Ukrainian
problem. Berlin has become more critical of Putin than it
once was, and markedly less trustful of him and his ruling
group in the process. Washington’s role in this evolution is
less clear than one might have expected. Merkel’s opposition
to America – or the less immediate possibility of Europe –
supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine may have coincided
with Obama’s reluctance to do so. She has insistently
repeated that force cannot resolve the Ukraine problem. The
trouble with that is that the Russians in effect insist that it
can, and show no sign of changing their minds.
Other Western mantras include the need to preserve
the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and the centrality of
support for its right to democratic development together
with the concomitant close relationship with the West,
and with the EU in particular. Again, however, these are
worthy aims whose concrete meaning is disputable. If
Minsk II is taken as indicative, then one interpretation of
it would be that Kyiv would pay for the cost of Russianpromoted
enclaves in the east of Ukraine that are not in
practice subject to its writ. This would come close to the
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