Putin’s cross-border aggression

The West must be resolute in its response to Russia

IN his startling admission last week that “I don’t have a strategy yet”, Barack Obama was referring to the Islamic State terrorists operating across Iraq and Syria. He might equally have been talking of the challenge posed by Vladimir Putin’s determination to redraw the map of Europe. The Russian leader has sent military units and heavy weaponry into Ukraine in what amounts to a major escalation in a continuing act of blatant cross-border aggression by one sovereign state against another.

The gravity of Mr Putin’s action and the challenge it sets for Western leadership can hardly be overstated. Yet the US President has spoken of it as merely “a continuation of what’s been taking place for months”. And European leaders at an emergency weekend summit, nervous about doing anything that might plunge their economies into recession and anxious about energy security as winter approaches, have again failed to take the swift retaliatory action expected from them. The imposition of a more stringent sanctions regime has been put off for a week, with Mr Putin on notice that unless he “reverses course” in Ukraine in that time, he will face consequences.

Mr Obama and the leaders of Europe will need to make good on that if they want to thwart Mr Putin’s determination to ensure Ukraine remains a Russian satellite. There is, of course, a need for realism. There is only so much that can be done. But there is also a need for resolute Western leadership in the crisis, otherwise Mr Putin will get away with his aggression, with potentially dire consequences for European and global security. As things stand, there can be little wonder he appears so self-assured. For all the huffing and puffing since he annexed Crimea, nothing much has happened that would convince him the West has the political will to challenge him. Mr Obama’s failure to make good on his Syrian “red lines” and the West’s failure to punish Moscow over its invasions of other Russian-speaking enclaves, such as South Ossetia, have doubtless fuelled Mr Putin’s belief that he can get away with his aggression.

NATO’s summit in Wales this week provides a timely opportunity to disabuse Mr Putin of this notion and reassert Western determination to ensure Ukraine does not fall prey to his expansionist designs. There is no appetite anywhere to send troops. Even so, there is much more the West can do to persuade Mr Putin to desist. It is imperative, for example, to supply Ukraine with the ability to seal its border with Russia and provide the spy drones and cyber surveillance it needs to enable Kiev to assert its authority. The EU must not flinch from imposing sanctions with real clout that go beyond the Kremlin’s bureaucracy and target the personal fortunes of Mr Putin and his cronies. Locking Russia out of the global banking system, and oil and arms embargoes, could also hit hard.

There was a time after the shooting down of MH17 when it seemed even Mr Putin had realised he had gone too far over Ukraine. That, unfortunately, did not last long. Now the former KGB colonel is ominously boasting about the potency of his nuclear arsenal in a way even Soviet leaders never did. His belligerence demands a resolute response from Mr Obama and other Western leaders, not more of the vacillation that has done so much to embolden Mr Putin.