Put the Blame on Putin

Seems the brave souls on Kiev’s Independence Square have managed something President Obama has not: They drew a line against a rogue leader — and enforced it.

In so doing, they not only sent President Viktor Yanukovych into hiding, they embarrassed Russia’s Vladimir Putin in the midst of what he had planned to be a public relations victory from a successful Sochi Olympics.

Pundits talk about a proRussian or proEuropean future for Ukraine.

Here’s the difference between the two: A Ukraine that associated with the European Union would not mean oppression for its Russian population.

But a Ukraine that becomes part of Putin’s Greater Russia will mean more of what we saw in the last days of Yanukovych — submission to bullying from Moscow, police firing on their own people, a gradual strangling of the nation’s independence.

The same dynamic is at work in Russia. If Russia were a free society, a thriving, independent and democratic Ukraine would take nothing away. Only rulers who preside over nonfree nations have reason to greet the rise of liberty in their neighborhoods as a threat.

For Putin to allow Ukraine to escape his embrace would not only be a humiliation, it would be a death blow to his plans for a postSoviet Russian empire. For that reason, and because Putin has thus far faced almost no consequences for his aggression here and elsewhere, sending in Russian troops, even with its risk of a civil war, may still look to Putin the best course.

That’s the weakness of the Putin model: strong but brittle. If Ukrainians can defy bullets to turn out their government, Russians may get ideas. And Putin knows it.