Putin’s provocations

After a reprieve of several days, any notion of a pause in the bombing of Syria has been abandoned. Aircraft are back up in the skies, flattening whole neighbourhoods. The pause last week — a unilateral ceasefire declared by Russia, ostensibly to permit civilians to flee contested areas — won’t be repeated, Moscow said. There will be no more humanitarian pauses. The disparate Syrian rebel forces will be crushed. Reports from Aleppo and other parts of Syria confirm that the brief pause is over. Syrian ground forces — backed by tanks, artillery and air power — are on the offensive again.

The bloodletting has not gone unnoticed. Late last week, the UN Human Rights Council ( UNHRC), in a rare diversion from its roundthe- clock condemnation of Israel, announced that it had launched an inquiry into possible war crimes committed around Aleppo. Though Russia and its Syrian proxies were not saddled with all the blame for the carnage, they clearly deserve the lion’s share. “Armed opposition groups continue to fire mortars and other projectiles into civilian neighbourhoods of western Aleppo,” said UNHRC Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, “but indiscriminate airstrikes across the eastern part of the city by government forces and their allies are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties.”

It’s nice that the UNHRC is paying attention. Perhaps some of the facts it gathers will prove useful. But it’s hard to see how. As complex as the Syrian conflict is, there’s no real ambiguity as to what’s happening in Aleppo: the city is held in part by the regime of President Bashar Assad and part by the rebels. Assad and his allies in Moscow are prepared to pulverize the part of the city they don’t hold until the rebels give it up or are driven out. It seems not to matter to them if they kill, maim or drive away every man, woman and child in the process.

There is no s i gn t he UNHCR’s interest will slow the assault. After ignoring the U. S., Europe and Syria’s neighbours in his singleminded support for Assad, there is no reason to expect that Russian President Vladimir Putin would pause for the UNHCR — to which Moscow is currently seeking reelection, as it happens. If the recent past is any measure, Putin can remain secure in assuming his aggressive activities will draw much com- plaint, but little action.

His proxies have invaded and occupied large part of Ukraine. Russia is linked to cyber- attacks across the world, i ncluding against members of NATO and most recently, of course, against Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The Russian air force and navy are active all over the globe. Just last week, a task force of Russian warships, including a small and antiquated, but still functional aircraft carrier, passed through the North Sea and English Channel en route to the Mediterranean. Russian warplanes have repeatedly violated NATO airspace in Europe and routinely approach North American air space. The country has recently conducted a series of missile tests, using hardware capable of sending a nuclear warhead at distant targets.

It is not abnormal for countries to conduct military tests. They carry out air and naval patrols. They even intervene in conflicts abroad, when their interests or humanitarian concerns warrant. But Russia’s actions are clearly intended to send a message to the world, and the U. S. in particular, that Moscow considers itself once again a world power to be reckoned with on its own terms.

Although relations with t he West have been described as a new Cold War, there is a profound difference. Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, the East and West confronted one another across a range of potential battlefields, each wary that the other might shoot first. In the eight years since Putin first exercised his muscle in Georgia, however, Western powers have yet to mount a serious challenge, or demonstrate the resolve required to dissuade him from further adventures.

War with Russia is unthinkable, but failure to confront a bully early is never a good strategy — the costs of such engagement only increase as time goes on. It took a very real risk of a Russian invasion of the Baltics for NATO to muster up a mere four battalions to stand watch there. In Syria, even that would be too much to ask for.

The UNHRC is free to gather its facts, or even deny Moscow a seat on the very council investigating it. And Putin will no doubt treat it with the contempt he has always shown for empty threats, until someone demonstrates the willingness to challenge him.