Triumph isn’t trouble-free for Putin
SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — Despite the spinelessness of western leaders, who have talked a great game over Crimea but have still only been prepared to impose gentle sanctions on Russia, Vladimir Putin confronts his own set of problems.
On Sunday, Crimea overwhelmingly voted “Yes” to union with Russia and on Monday its parliament declared the region an independent state.
Now, after these events, it has become a lot harder if not impossible for the Russian leader to walk back from what has happened here and strike a deal with the West over the entire Ukraine that would give the Kremlin a lot more sway than it has had since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
By sending the Russian army into Crimea to supervise “fair” elections, Putin has alienated many Ukrainians who have been sitting on the fence, pushing them further into the European Union’s half-hearted embrace. By massing as many as 60,000 troops at various places along Ukraine’s eastern border, he has created expectations among Russian Ukrainians and at home in Russia that further adventures are planned.
This theme could be heard in every speech from the state at Sevastopol’s victory party on Sunday evening. There were profuse thanks for Putin from the local worthies, who to great cheers, excitedly boasted that they had created a roadmap for the annexation of eastern Ukraine to Russia and the beginning of the glorious reconstruction of the Soviet Union.
Because Russia’s nationalist genie is already well out of the bottle in Ukraine and in Russia — and to keep in check the 20,000 or 30,000 protesters who, in Moscow over the weekend, expressed their horror at what he had done in Crimea — the easier domestic choice for Putin right now would be to continue to press his advantage and seize as much of Ukraine as he dares. But, if he follows this path, at some point even the craven Europeans and that world-class ditherer, U.S. President Barack Obama, will be forced to take decisive action that could cause Russia severe long-term economic harm.
So, despite his triumph in Crimea, Ukraine remains a red-hot potato for Putin. As good as the old spy must feel at having vanquished the West without having fired a shot, he still stands on the edge of a cliff and cannot see what lies below.
One of the calculations Putin must make is what price can Russia afford to pay economically if the West eventually tries to bring his economy to its knees. On the heels of the costly Sochi extravaganza, and with serious and growing budget problems at home, Putin must also figure out how much Russia can afford to keep Crimea afloat. That price will certainly be in the tens of billions of dollars.
Begging bowl presumably in hand and keen to hear that there is a rapid timeline leading to formal annexation to Russia, Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov flew to Moscow on Monday. In what may or may not represent a slight easing in tensions, Aksyonov’s government announced Sunday that Russian troops would drop their siege of Ukrainian military bases until Friday, to give those inside a chance to switch sides or walk away without their weapons. There have been some western commentaries suggesting that the 96.7 per cent vote in favour of Crimea’s secession from Ukraine was a cooked-up figure reminiscent of the huge scores that Communists in China and North Korea still run up. As I reported early Sunday, having peered into lots of transparent ballot boxes, I did not see one vote that was not in favour of union with Russia. There is no doubting of the veracity of the count.
But Sunday’s referendum was a travesty. With Russian troops lurking just up the road, the farcical process was railroaded through in only one week, allowing no time for legitimate political discussions of any kind.
Self-styled Crimean civil defence units — augmented by equally thick-necked men who by their accents and the rubles that they pulled from their pockets were indisputably from Russia — were as menacing to those who might have supported Ukraine as the radicals who forced the coup that toppled Viktor Yanukovych’s regime in Kyiv on Feb. 22. Radio and television transmissions were totally dominated by Moscow’s message. Every scrap of advertising supported the Russian cause and labelled the Ukrainian government and those foreign governments who supported it as fascists.
Other than a few brief rallies in favour of Ukraine by Crimea’s Turkic-speaking Tatar minority, there was only one pro-Kyiv meeting. It was broken up when some of those in attendance were beaten up by thugs wearing clownish Cossack uniforms. Given such naked intimidation, the 10 or 15 per cent of Crimeans who want nothing to do with Moscow wisely stayed home.
Will Moscow’s travelling agitprop circus now take its hysterical scare tactics from Crimea to tense eastern Ukrainian cities such as Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkiv?