West failing in its bid to stop Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine savagery

Russian soldiers patrol a street in Volnovakha in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. Picture: AFP

If it is confirmed that Russian forces have used chemical weapons in Ukraine, this represents a radical new threshold for Vladimir Putin.

It is a complete defiance of basic international norms.

It means the West has failed again to deter Putin.

More than a month of escalating Western sanctions against Russia, plus humiliation for Russian forces in Ukraine, enabled in part by increasing flows of Western weaponry, has not deterred Putin from escalating violence in eastern Ukraine, even as Russian forces pull back from Kyiv.

It may well be the worst is yet to come in this vicious war.

The public anointing of General Aleksandr Dvornikov, with his bloody record in Syria, to head Russia’s war in Ukraine signals Putin’s intent.

The massive shake-up of Russian intelligence agencies, the mass sackings, the jailing of an intelligence leader, show rage and confusion at the top of the Russian system.

In communist times, such upheaval was often a precursor to savage repression, as the regime sought scapegoats and enemies to punish.

It is also a sign of deep paranoia. Putin could well become even more savage in eastern Ukraine.

One, that’s his past modus operandi. Two, he has whipped his people into a frenzy of nationalist anger and will want to vent this on the battlefield. Three, he must be able to take home some sort of territorial “victory”, at least a land corridor between Donbas and Crimea.

The Ukrainians will resist this, after all they’ve suffered, and given that Putin’s record is to “freeze” conflicts for a time and then restart them whenever it suits him tactically and politically.

An unexploded tail section of a 300mm rocket that appeared to contained cluster bombs launched from a rocket launcher in the Luhansk region. Picture: AFP

Also, while Putin surely never expected to experience such battlefield reverses, it is still unclear that he has suffered strategic disaster.

The EU conceded this week that since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine it has spent more than US$51bn ($69bn) on Russian energy imports, while it has furnished less than US$2bn to Ukraine in military aid.

The Ukraine war, among other factors, has caused commodity prices to shoot up. This benefits Russia, just as it benefits Australia.

So far, the burden of Western sanctions has amounted to currency restrictions and intellectual property embargoes, especially through international brands.

This has certainly hurt the Russian economy, but over time the world can expect to see authoritarian regimes, and even quasi-democratic regimes that nonetheless fear they may one day suffer Western sanctions, find alternatives to the US dollar as the trading currency.

The only really effective way to sanction the Russian economy is to stop buying its coal, oil and gas. The Europeans say they will wean themselves off Russian oil eventually, but several European nations will veto any EU-wide oil or gas import ban in the short term.

The more gradually the EU moves, the more time Moscow has to establish alternative markets. And, sad to say, Russia has substantial popular sympathy from anti-Western publics in the Third World, even in nations such as Vietnam, Indonesia and India, among many others.

It’s a good thing that Australia is standing in complete solidarity with Ukraine. Our aid dollars are useful. Our 20 Bushmaster vehicles are entirely symbolic. It probably costs more to fly them there four at a time than it would cost to buy new vehicles in Europe.

Like most of the military conflicts we get involved in, Ukraine is a very long way away and it is sobering that it is producing no serious reflection in Australia about our own strategic vulnerabilities.

At least, if it is producing any reflection, it’s certainly not producing any action.