Putin’s Crimea chest-beating may conceal his deepest fear
Ousting of corrupt Ukrainian leader hits too close to home for Russia, writes Amy Knight
ON the surface, it would appear that Russian President Vladimir Putin has gained the upper hand in Ukraine since sending Russian troops to the Crimea: although Western leaders have protested against the incursion, there has been little enthusiasm for some kind of direct action in support of the new government in Kiev.
Yet behind the military posturing and defiant rhetoric, Putin and his advisers seem hesitant to deploy Russian troops beyond the Crimea and on Monday they halted military manoeuvres that had panicked Kiev. Is the Kremlin more worried about this crisis than we think?
Clearly, one reason Putin seems to have decided to only go so far in Ukraine is the possibility of provoking retaliatory moves from the West. In a bristling response to Washington’s threat to impose economic sanctions and a host of other measures that would isolate Russia from the West, the Kremlin has let it be known that it could abandon the dollar as reserve currency and default on loans to US banks. But Putin may also be apprehensive about the reaction in Russia if he pushes the confrontation with Ukraine to the brink of war — a concern that may actually give the West further leverage.
Putin may appear to have scant regard for the views of the population he serves — the Kremlin started moving troops into Crimea before the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, had even voted on the action. However, the council is filled with the Kremlin’s hand-picked supporters, so its approval could be counted on — and was unanimous.
But Moscow has also made great efforts to keep domestic opinion about Ukraine on Putin’s side: since the protests in Kiev began in November, there has been a barrage of anti-US propaganda on Russian state-controlled media.
The problem is that the toppling of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an autocrat whose government was plagued by corruption, is dangerously close to home for Putin. The memory of large demonstrations against the Russian government two years ago and continued allegations of Kremlin corruption are doubtless troubling senior Putin advisers.
For the time being, ordinary Russians seem to support the Kremlin’s aggression towards Ukraine. More than 20 000 people in Moscow and 15 000 in St Petersburg demonstrated last weekend to express their backing of Russia’s policies. But according to London’s Telegraph newspaper, the Moscow rally “bore all the hallmarks of attempting to boost numbers by paying protesters and busing in state employees”.
And Russia’s independent media has almost unanimously condemned Putin’s actions, with one editor warning they could destabilise the Russian Federation. So it could be only a matter of time before the mood of the country changes, particularly if there are further revelations about corruption that implicate Russia’s own ruling elite.
One of the chief reasons for the protests in Ukraine was outrage at the pervasive thievery of Yanukovych and his entourage.
It has been further fuelled by the throwing open of Yanukovych’s estate outside Kiev, which has been revealed to have not only a garishly opulent palace, but also a series of exotic gardens, a garage full of million-dollar sports cars and a pri-
Corruption ‘has become a Frankenstein, which Putin created. Now it will be hard, even impossible, to rein it in’
vate zoo. And the trail of misused state funds has now led beyond Ukraine’s borders.
On February 28, Swiss authorities began a criminal investigation of Yanukovych and his son, Alexander, for “aggravated money laundering”. And Ukraine’s new interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has accused the Yanukovych government of plundering the state’s coffers by moving $70-billion (about R743-billion) to private offshore ac- counts. Yatsenyuk claimed that Ukraine’s gold and hard currency reserves had dropped from $37-billion to $15-billion since 2010, when Yanukovych came to power.
Such revelations are doubtless a source of unease for Putin and his associates, who have long faced similar allegations by their Russian critics.
Significantly, Putin conceded in a lengthy press conference on Tuesday that the Yanukovych government was ousted because of corruption: “Why are Ukrainians demanding radical change? Because they have grown used to seeing one set of thieves replaced by another.”
According to a series of welldocumented reports published by Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Putin has at his disposal 20 villas and homes, four yachts and a palace on the Black Sea that would arouse the envy of Louis XIV. Then there is the Kremlin-installed president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who is widely viewed as Putin’s stooge.
Kadyrov, a dictator who lives like a king in a fortified compound, shares Yanukovych’s penchant for luxury cars and exotic animals.
Political activist and anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny — now under house arrest after being slapped with bogus criminal charges by Russian prosecutors on February 28 — has also accused Putin and his government of vast financial malfeasance, citing shady arms procurement deals and, more recently, the granting of construction tenders to Putin’s cronies for the Olympic winter games.
In the view of political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, official corruption in Russia “has become a Frankenstein, which Putin himself created. Now it will be hard, even impossible, to rein it in.”
According to a 2012 poll by the Russian Levada-Centre, most Russians are aware of Putin’s vast wealth and that of the oligarchs who surround him.
Although almost 40% of those polled voiced their disapproval, most were resigned to the situation because they felt there was nothing they could do about it.
But the example of Ukraine could rouse Russian citizens from their passivity, especially if the Ukrainian crisis causes the value of the rouble to continue its decline and the Russian economy starts to founder, as many economists are now predicting.
And this is where the US strategy of economic sanctions against the Russian government could be effective.
Critics have accused President Barack Obama of not standing firm against Putin and the Russian occupation of the Crimea. But if the US pushes for economic sanctions, as Obama has threatened, it could have far-reaching repercussions in Russia, particularly for the Russian business elite, an important base of political support for Putin.
In Iran, for example, Western economic sanctions caused an economic crisis and helped to bring the Iranian leadership to historic talks to curb its nuclear programme.
Freezing Russian financial assets abroad and denying visas to Russian officials and businessmen wanting to travel to the West to generate more investment could seriously undermine Putin’s political position in the long term.
Of course, such sanctions, to be effective, would require the cooperation of European countries, which are dependent on Russia for a quarter of their gas supply and therefore may be more cautious in confronting the Kremlin.
But much of this gas travels through pipelines in Ukraine, and further Russian military incursions into the country could unleash a conflict that would probably disrupt the flow of gas and other goods to the West in any case.
Judging from Putin’s statements, he is hedging his bets before making further military moves in Ukraine, although his government will strengthen its efforts to undermine the new temporary government in Kiev by inciting discontent among the country’s pro-Russian population in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
If Obama hopes to dissuade Putin from further aggression, his best strategy may be to make it clear that further provocation of the West could have far-reaching consequences for Putin’s supporters in Russia. — © The New York Times