Shackling the dogs of war
After an ugly season of meddling in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to rein in his attack dogs rather than risk a military confrontation with the North Atlantic alliance, and crippling economic sanctions. This won’t restore Crimea. But it bolsters Ukraine’s political independence, checks the spectre of invasion and lowers the risk of a ghastly miscalculation.
To that extent, the tentative deal that was brokered in Geneva on Thursday to ease the crisis is “a good day’s work,” as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry put it. If it succeeds in disarming the Kremlin’s shadowy agents and restores law and order in the coming days, it may prove to be the beginning of the end to Europe’s most dangerous standoff since the Cold War. Russia must live up to its terms or face harsh sanctions.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s announcement earlier in the day that Canada is prepared to send CF-18 fighter-bombers and military staff to Europe to support our North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies underscored how grave that crisis was growing. The alliance is deploying warplanes, fighting ships and troops to counter any Russian threat to NATO territory.
Under the Geneva deal reached between Russia, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States, Putin has tacitly agreed to call off his Russian special forces, pro-Russia separatists and agents provocateurs in Eastern Ukraine who have been taking over government buildings in a number of cities, commandeering military hardware and destabilizing the central authorities.
The deal calls for them to be disarmed, disbanded and removed from the scene. And the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe will field monitors to ensure that Ukraine’s legitimate authorities are reinstalled. This also strips the Kremlin of any bogus pretext to invade with the 40,000 troops it has stationed on the border.
In exchange, the European Union, the United States and their allies will temporarily suspend plans to hammer Russian banking and energy sectors with sanctions that could cripple the country’s economy.
Russia has already paid a heavy price for seizing Crimea. It is politically isolated. Putin’s scheme to coerce Ukraine into a Eurasian Economic Union is now ashes and dust. Russia has been suspended from the Group of Eight club. And its economy has stalled. Capital is fleeing Russia, the ruble has tanked along with the stock market and the country may yet be plunged into recession.
On the Ukrainian side, the Geneva deal requires President Oleksandr Turchynov to provide some comfort for the sizeable Russian minority. He will bring a bill before parliament within three months to reform the constitution and transfer “significant” power from overly-centralized Kyiv to the regions. Reformers want to see Kyiv devolve provincial-type powers, including the right for regions to elect their governors, to manage their budgets for services such as health and education, and to get the funding they need. In practice, this would give Ukraine’s regions more autonomy than Russia’s own regions enjoy.
While Russian nationalists are bound to claim these reforms as a “win” for Putin and his pressure tactics, they were in the works long before he cynically took advantage of Ukraine’s political upheaval to seize Crimea by force, in violation of all international law, on the shabby pretext of defending the Russian ethnic majority there. Instead of gaining regional self-rule as Ukrainians, Crimeans now find themselves in an autocratic Russia with a shaky economy.
The Geneva deal, if it sticks, will allow Ukraine to hold its May 25 presidential election in peace and forge a better future on its own terms. One that looks confidently westward, toward Europe, and away from its tormenter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to rein in his attack dogs rather than risk confrontation with the West