This is about him, it’s about us, and it’s about Ukraine.
First, the Ukraine crisis is about the Russian President Vladimir Putin, suffered what historians call the “rational slippage” that accompanies 22 years of autocratic power. Having become more hardened and isolated over time – besieged by communists and faced with unforeseen Ukrainian resistance – he is doubling down on his gratuitous, gratuitous war, their illegal and immoral.
Second, however, it is even more about the West, and whether we can reverse the “purposeful slide” among Western democracies over the past three decades, highlighted by the erosion of democratic gains around the world since 2006. Putin is the result of our mass amnesia of what frustrated people do when they’ve been appeased for too long. Ukraine is the immediate, but not the only, victim.
we too little response after Russia cyber attack on Estonia 2007, Russia’s Invasion of Georgia in 2008, Russia annexed Crimea and military intervention in Donbas in 2014; Russia’s Ongoing Disinformation and Cyberattacks Against the United States and Other Democracies; it suppresses and assassinates opponents; and This ongoing international crime scene in Ukraine.
The series of weekend announcements signaled a tectonic shift in Europe and an equally important shift in the Biden administration to a more assertive posture, suggesting a growing perception that Putin’s aggressive actions are as dangerous to the future of Europe as to Ukraine.
On Saturday, the European Union, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Japan and Canada – Group of 7 countries, plus the EU – announced unprecedented economic sanctions against Russia. “Never before has the G-20 economy experienced a foreign asset freeze,” said Josh Lipsky, director of the Center for Geoeconomics at the Atlantic Council. “It could cripple the commercial banking system, which is already under heavy pressure from sanctions, and cause the ruble to weaken rapidly when markets open on Monday.”
The moves include the removal of some Russian banks from the SWIFT system, thereby undermining their ability to operate globally; measures that would prevent the Bank of Russia from deploying its reserves in ways that would reduce the impact of sanctions; and a crackdown on “golden passports” that gave wealthy Russians access to Western financial systems.
That was accompanied by the announcement of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about a breakthrough decision equip Ukraine with air and missile defense systems, followed by his decision to increase defense spending on Sunday more than 2% of GDP along with a special fund of $100 billion for defense investments.
“The Russian invasion marks a turning point,” Scholz tweeted on Saturday. “We have a duty to support Ukraine to the best of our ability to defend against Putin’s invading army.”
That, in turn, along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveils an additional $350 million in military assistance, signal the President Joe Biden’s increasingly understand that his legacy is on the way.
Third, of course, the immediate crisis over Ukraine, a democracy The country of 44 million people became independent after the breakup of the Soviet Union in late 1991. Ukraine’s main threat to Moscow since then has been an example of independence, freedom and prosperity, a threat that Putin is trying to cover up with lies that President Do Thai Volodomyr Zelenskyy and his government are one “neo-Nazi gang“commit War Crimes that should be documented and prosecuted.
Zelenskyy has emerged as an unlikely hero, refusing to leave the country’s capital Kyiv despite the danger to his life. After US officials recommended evacuating him, Zelenskyy instead said he needed ammunition and “not a trip. “
Ukraine’s stubborn resistance caught Putin by surprise and gave Western democracies more time to act. The Ukrainian army and thousands of newly recruited volunteers have regained control Seventh Kyiv from the Russian army and secret unitsand they continue to resist Russian efforts to capture Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
That said, there is little doubt that Putin will double the money in the coming days rather than accept defeat. He had only scratched the surface of the harm his 190,000 deployed troops could cause. Putin’s vicious war is now threatening his very existence. And just now he ordered Russia’s nuclear deterrent is on high alert in an even more brazen attempt to intimidate the world.
“If the fierce resistance of the Ukrainians will lead to a long and bloody war” wrote Yaroslav Trofimov of The Wall Street Journal from Kyiv“or force Mr. Putin to find a way to end the fighting without achieving his goals – a failure that could threaten both his hold on power in Moscow and his efforts to restore Russia to a global power. bridge”.
Conversely, if Putin is not contained, his military will move closer to the most exposed NATO members, once the “captive states” of the Soviet bloc, now members of the Soviet Union. European Union: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. There is a collective consensus, promote the actions of this weekend, that Putin will not stop in Ukraine.
Perhaps now and again it takes a brave people like the Ukrainians to remind us of the freedoms we so often take for granted. For me as a reporter in Eastern and Central Europe during the 1980s, that was the role that the Polish people and the Polish pope played during the last years of the Cold War.
At the Munich Security Conference a few days ago, the most inspiring moment of the weekend for me was a small, private dinner with Ukrainian MPs, about thirty years old or younger.
They, in turn, spoke with the passion of individuals who understood they were on the front lines of freedom, calling on their European and American colleagues to defend the Ukrainian democracy they had inspired.
A former congressman, a young woman, who the next day would return to her family in Ukraine at the start of the war, spoke of the commitments made to Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Later. , US, UK and Russia offer security guarantees. guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for a deal to return all 1,800 nuclear weapons to Russia.
Her message: Ukraine has delivered on its commitments, and now the time has come for the United States and its partners to live up to their commitments.
The chances of success of President Zelenskyy’s delegation in negotiations on the Belarusian border with the Russian delegation will be much greater if Putin believes that the West has Ukraine’s back.
–Frederick Kempe is the President and CEO of the Atlantic Council.
