ARGUMENT: What Germany Owes Ukraine
a state visit to Hungary on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated what has become her mantra ever since Russian tanks, men, and materiel began pouring over the border into Ukraine last spring. “I am convinced that this conflict cannot be solved militarily,” the Queen of Europe, now entering her 10th year as the most powerful leader on the continent, said.
If only Vladimir Putin agreed.
Almost immediately following its stealth invasion of Crimea and subsequent illegal annexation of the peninsula last march, Russia began supplying arms and tactical support to rebels in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Soon thereafter, Russian soldiers themselves joined the fight. Official Russian claims to the contrary, the steady trickle of body bags back to Mother Russia over the past year has attested to the presence of Russian forces fighting (and dying) in Ukraine. In the past two weeks, pro-Russian rebels, emboldened by the support they have received from regular Russian military forces, have killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians, including children, by firing shells indiscriminately into non-combatant areas like transit stops.
Putin’s strategy is clear. He intends to punish Ukraine for ousting its pro-Russian leader, Viktor Yanukovych, and for having the gall to seek a western political orientation. And he intends to do so by rendering it a failed state. A semi-permanent condition of low-intensity armed conflict in the East serves that function. To secure his grip on Crimea, Putin also seeks to establish a land bridge connecting it to the Russian mainland, which explains the increased military activity around Donetsk and Mariupol in recent weeks.
Putin seems to have no misgivings about using military means to achieve his goals.Putin seems to have no misgivings about using military means to achieve his goals. Which is why, according to the Ukrainian government, there are currently some 15,000 Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory and an untold higher number amassed at the border, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. A cease-fire agreement signed in Minsk last fall — in which Merkel and other European diplomats naively invested much hope — is no longer worth the paper it was written on, if it ever was.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/05/what-germany-owes-ukraine/
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