Stop doing business with enemies of our cherished freedoms
PUTIN is dangerously ramping up tension in Eastern Europe by recognising the independence of the two breakaway Ukraine republics. With Russian tanks rolling into Donetsk and Luhansk to support Kremlin-backed rebels, he is invading the territory of a sovereign nation.
This shocking display of naked power threatens neighbouring nations such as the now independent Baltic states, once part of the Soviet Union.
As an ex-KGB foreign intelligence officer, Putin is a Cold War warrior and his political agenda is motivated by returning former Soviet states to the direct influence of Moscow.
Ironically, this conflict is closest to the Cuban Missile Crisis exactly 60 years ago in 1962. Then, the world stood on the edge of nuclear war when the Soviet Union wanted to install long-range missiles just 90 miles off the coast of Florida in Cuba.
US president John F Kennedy said “no” and in a similar standoff, now Putin is resisting the presence of hostile enemy forces close to his homeland.
It could be argued Putin has a legitimate interest in stopping Nato expanding to his frontier, as the Ukraine is very much within the historical sphere of Moscow’s influence and certainly during the Cold War, the US did not tolerate Communist incursion into Central America.
BUT his bullying of neighbouring nations is a wake-up call to all that tyranny must not be seen to triumph. If Putin successfully intimidates Ukraine into submission, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have everything to fear from their authoritarian neighbour.
Already, Putin is propping up the ruthless ruler of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, terrorising his own people for daring to rise against him in a disputed 2020 presidential election.
In January, Putin sent troops to quell riots in Kazakhstan, another neighbour ruled by a despot. If Putin gets away with cowing Ukraine, Chinese tyrants will be emboldened to do the same with Taiwan, a capitalist democracy off their coast.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has already put the boot into Hong Kong and its political rights, with little interference from the West.The world is watching, but what can we do?
There is very little appetite for military conflict between two nuclear powers. Britain and the US are threatening sanctions but these have been tried before and had little effect on Putin’s actions in the past.
Far more important is our economic dependency on Russia, centring around its supply of gas and oil to Germany (32 per cent of German gas comes from Russia as does 34 per cent of crude oil and 53 per cent of coal) and other European nations. It is those billions of euros of fuel revenue that maintain the Russian army and gives Putin his muscle.
Economically, Russia is not a superpower, just the world’s 11th biggest economy, behind South Korea and Canada, and immensely dependent on trading energy to sustain its people.
If Europe, Germany especially, woke up to this threat, it should stop buying its energy abroad simply to burnish its net-zero credentials, and understand it is funding the enemy of its cherished freedoms.
Energy independence will reduce the money-pot available to Putin and destabilise his dictatorial hold over his people.
Similarly, the West should sever its dependence on China for cheap tech imports and make more of its own.
The shift to “clean” electricpowered tech, especially cars, is handing the Chinese an enormous strategic advantage as they buy up all the necessary raw materials for batteries.
If Putin is foolish enough to follow up his recognition of Ukraine’s breakaway territories this week with a full-blown military invasion of the country, he should ponder what happened in Afghanistan 40 years ago.
IT WAS the Soviet’s attempted conquest of the central Asian nation in the 1980s that contributed to the collapse of the Communist super-state. Thousands of Russian men came home in body bags and millions of roubles were squandered.
Then, US Stinger anti-aircraft missiles gave Afghan rebels a military edge over the helicopter-dependent Soviets.
Just as Britain has supplied anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, so other sophisticated arms could dent Russia’s military and the cost in lives and money could undermine support at home.
Afghanistan was the Soviet Union’s Vietnam and a bloody drawn-out guerrilla war in Ukraine could sap Putin’s control over his country.
As the student of history he pretends to be, that should be the ultimate warning against an ill-judged invasion.
‘A guerrilla war in Ukraine could sap Putin’s control over his country’