Page 6 Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Opinion
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Ukraine: the price Putin will pay
C
onducting an orderly retreat is unlike what Putin is doing now”. Prince the hardest thing not only in Charles is well known for saying silly war but also in politics, as Rus- things, but what he said in Canada soundsian President Vladimir Putin is ed quite sensible to many people in the now learning. His own desire to West. That is a big problem for Putin. avoid humiliation gets in the way of rapid Putin’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, disengagement from a losing battle, which though completely illegal, was not the first why he waited until two days before last step in his plan for world conquest. That is Sunday’s Ukrainian presidential election to preposterous: Russia is a relatively poor say that he would respect country of only 140 million the result. And even then he people. But it is a regrettasaid “respect”, not “recogble fact of life that the Hitler nise”. analogy has a powerful grip The Ukrainian election on the popular imagination went well. Petro Poroshenthroughout Europe and Gwynne ko, a minor-league oligarch North America, and Putin’s Dyer with business interests in aimless belligerence has Russia, won convincingly been setting him up in in the first round, and 60 percent of voters Western minds as the next Hitler. actually showed up at the polls. Even in He was very cross when his tame Donetsk province, where most city centres Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, are occupied by separatist gunmen, seven was overthrown by protesters after he out of twelve district electoral commis- obeyed Putin’s demand to break off trade sions were able to operate normally. It’s a talks with the European Union. Putin pungood start on stabilising the country. ished Ukraine by annexing Crimea, and he So why didn’t Putin just say “recognise, started doing some heavy breathing about when that is clearly what he will have to do Ukraine’s eastern provinces as well. in the end if Russia and Ukraine are to have He encouraged pro-Russian gunmen to peaceful relations? Why prolong the un- seize government buildings in eastern certainty about his intentions in the West, Ukraine and warned that he might interwhere the belief that he is an “expansion- vene militarily if the Ukrainian governist” bent on recreating the Russian/Soviet ment used force against them. He moved empire takes deeper root with each pass- 40,000 troops up to Ukraine’s eastern boring day? The answer is pride – and Russia der on “exercises”. It was quite pointless, will pay a significant price for Putin’s pride. since he could neither annex the eastern Last week Prince Charles, heir to the provinces nor remove the Ukrainian govBritish throne, enlivened his royal tour of ernment without actually invading, but he Canada by telling an elderly Polish immi- was VERY cross. grant that Hitler’s relentless take-over of Three months of that, and the damage European countries in the 1930s was “not to his and Russia’s image is starting to pile
up. Simple-minded people like Prince Charles talk about a new Hitler. Terrified Poles, Estonians and other Eastern Europeans who used to live under the Soviet yoke fear that they might be next and demand NATO troops on their soil. And clever people in the Western military-industrial complexes see an opportunity to sell more of their wares. FINALLY, only two days before the Ukranian election, Putin says he will “respect” the result, and his tanks start to pull back from Ukraine’s border. Too damned late. There won’t be any more Western sanctions against Russia, but Putin has managed to resurrect the image of Russia as a mortal threat to its neighbours. It will not lie down again soon. European defence budgets will stop falling, and the integration of the armed forces of the various new NATO members in Eastern Europe will accelerate. Leading-edge technologies like missile defence will get more funding in the United States. Foreign investment in Russia is already declining. And the countries of the European Union will move heaven and earth to cut their dependence on Russian gas exports. Putin has already turned to China as a new customer for Russian gas, but it will never pay as well as Europe did. He used to be able to play the Europeans and the Chinese off against each other, but that game is over. NATO sees him as a wild card at best, and at worst a real threat. The master strategist has lost his touch. Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist based in London.