How the West Is Losing Ukraine

[Purveyor]

Feb 3, 2015 1:05 PM EST
By Leonid Bershidsky

U.S. President Barack Obama has joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel in saying that the West should take a patient, long-term approach to dealing with Russia's aggression in Ukraine. The real message to Kiev: You're on your own in fighting pro-Russian rebels and Russian troops.

Obama, in an interview on Sunday with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, said the West's limited arsenal prevented it from taking on Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Given the size of the Russian military, given the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO country, and so as a consequence there are clear limits in terms of what we would do militarily, Mr. Putin has not been stopped so far," he said. His words echoed those of Merkel, who said in November that the only weapon the West could use was its economic strength, which could work only over time. "One should not lose hope too quickly," she said. "For 40 years we heard radio broadcasts about the imminent collapse" of East Germany, "and after 40 years, when everyone had lost hope, it happened."

Both leaders have rebuffed calls from Ukraine and from a group of retired U.S. officials for the West to supply weapons to the Ukrainian army, now engaged in some of the toughest fighting since the conflict in the country's eastern regions began. Merkel said Germany would not arm Ukraine even if the U.S. changes its mind. All that remains for the U.S., according to Obama, is to put more pressure on Russia, bolster Ukraine's reform efforts and protect European allies. As for Putin, Obama is "not wildly optimistic" that his attitude is going to change, because his behavior appears to be boosting his popularity in Russia. "Perhaps over time he changes his mind."

So the two most powerful Western leaders appear to be in complete agreement about, figuratively speaking, sitting on the riverbank and waiting for Putin's corpse to float by. The West is concerned about containing Russia and preventing it from attacking some obvious targets such as Latvia and Estonia, which are both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and have large Russian minorities, but it sees no urgency about helping Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the situation in Ukraine is deteriorating. For the last four days, Russian-backed separatists have been trying to encircle about 7,000 Ukrainian troops around the railroad junction of Debaltsevo. On the map, the directions of rebel strikes are marked purple:

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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-03/how-the-west-is-losing-ukraine

[geek tragedy]

1. Ukraine is screwed. NATO/EU is making sure Putin doesn't claim any future victims. nt

[Purveyor]

2. And Putin has put a check on the NATO/EU eastward expansion.

Win-win for both imo if the dust settles without a major military confrontation.

[geek tragedy]

3. Well, except now the Baltic states will have significantly more military resources

deployed within their borders, as will Poland.

Putin will need to figure out what to do for his next mini-war he gins up to appeal to Russian nationalism. He's running out of 'piglets' to terrorize.

Once Ukraine gets partitioned and Russia bites off the eastern chunk and annexes it in a de facto sense (e.g. those regions formally leave Ukraine and join an 'alliance' with Russia with full economic integration), what's left of Ukraine may join NATO yet.

Real question for Ukraine/NATO is how much of Ukraine needs to be sacrificed to ensure that Russian tanks don't roll into Kiev.

[Manifest Destiny]

4. Thanks for this.

I'm sure once we lose everyone will say we never wanted it anyway.