Russian mobilization in Ukraine raises fears about new Cold War era in Europe
BERLIN — Although Udo Grelzik spent almost half his life under communist rule in East Germany, he never anticipated the threat of anything like a new Cold War in Europe.
Those days were supposedly consigned to a shadowy epoch of the Berlin Wall, countless noirish thrillers and the daily proximity of nuclear Armageddon.
“I’m definitely scared now, because you never know what might happen once the fighting starts,” said Grelzik, 61, a renewable energy project developer who lives outside Berlin, the German capital. “What might begin as a regional fight could end up spreading fast. That’s the last thing that anyone in Germany or anywhere else wants.”
The threat of major war in Ukraine — accelerated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision Monday to recognize the independence of two Ukrainian separatist regions — has sparked angst throughout Europe, more than three decades after the Cold War ended. The continent’s collective consciousness is wedged somewhere between fear and denial — with lots of blame tossed into the mix — as many view with dread the prospect of a region once again divided into Eastern and Western blocs.
The protracted EastWest standoff after World War II and its attendant threat of a nuclear conflagration remain a not-sodistant memory to many in Europe. Although U.S.Russian ties have become increasingly frayed in the post-Cold War era, the current Ukrainian crisis appears to have pushed matters to a near-breaking point.
“It’s very unsettling,” said Ian Shields, an associate lecturer at Cambridge University who spent three decades in Britain’s Royal Air Force and flew nucleararmed training missions in the early 1980s. “From the European point of view, we should be very worried by this.”
Putin, said Shields, is accomplishing two key goals: beefing up his domestic popularity with nationalist pronouncements while driving a wedge through Europe.
“I think politically Putin is playing a very clever and very worrying game,” said Shields. “If we don’t respond sufficiently robustly, are we going to see literally a return to the Cold War, where you have areas around the world split into one or two camps?”
“Act of War,” blared the headline on Britain’s Sun newspaper describing Putin’s move, labeling the moment the most perilous international period since the Cuban missile crisis 60 years ago.
The declaration by Putin sparked vows of a new round of U.S. and European sanctions against Moscow, targeting businesses, wealthy Russians and the country’s financial services.
But perhaps the most consequential response was German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s announcement Tuesday that he was suspending certification of the $11-billion Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project, which runs from Russia to Germany.
Germany and much of Europe are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas. More than a third of the gas the 27-nation European Union uses to generate electricity and heat homes comes from Russia. That is one reason Berlin has sometimes been viewed as a reluctant partner in Washington’s bid to contain Moscow.
The German leader was cryptic in explaining why his government had moved to block the pipeline’s certification — a measure that Washington had long urged Berlin to wield against Moscow. Authorities would “make a new assessment of the security of our supply in light of what has changed in the last few days,” Scholz said.
Others were less diplomatic.
Speaking Tuesday on the BBC, Gen. Richard Shirreff, Britain’s former top NATO commander, warned that the situation could devolve into “warfare on a scale not seen in Europe since 1945. I think it’s difficult to overstate the seriousness of the situation.”
In Paris, a French official told France 24 that the Russian leader’s declaration Monday was “rigid and paranoid,” and betrayed promises made to President Emmanuel Macron. The French leader spoke with Putin twice by telephone Sunday in a frenetic bid to reduce tensions and become perhaps Europe’s chief interlocutor with his Russian counterpart.
In Eastern European nations such as Poland and Hungary, once Soviet satellite states, officials were bracing for a possible influx of refugees from neighboring Ukraine. The former front-line states in the Cold War — and current members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — have no illusions about the potentially calamitous consequences of a war in Europe.
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, condemned Putin’s action as “a crass violation of international law.”
Likewise, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi called Russia’s recognition of the two breakaway regions “an unacceptable violation of the democratic sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Italy has long been viewed by many as soft on sanctions against Russia. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi forged a close friendship with Putin, and Matteo Salvini, the hard-right populist leader and former interior minister, lavished high praise on Russia.
Germany, home to Europe’s largest economy, has also sometimes been seen in Washington as hesitant to go full throttle on sanctions against Russia, for various reasons — especially its dependence on Russian natural gas for energy needs and its many business ties with Russia. Also, there is a lingering sense of guilt among some Germans for the destruction inflicted on Russia in World War II.