Simon Shuster
Even a week ago, the idea of a Russian military intervention in Ukraine seemed farfetched if not totally alarmist. The risks involved were just too enormous for President Vladimir Putin
and for the country he has ruled for 14 years. But the arrival of
Russian troops in Crimea over the weekend has shown that he is not
averse to reckless adventures, even ones that offer little gain. In the
coming days and weeks, Putin will have to decide how far he is prepared
to take this intervention and how much he is prepared to suffer for it.
It is already clear, however, that he cannot emerge as the winner of
this conflict, at least not when the damage is weighed against the
gains. It will at best be a Pyrrhic victory, and at worst an utter
catastrophe. Here’s why:
That seems astounding in light of
all the brainwashing Russians have faced on the issue of Ukraine. For
weeks, the Kremlin’s effective monopoly on television news has been
sounding the alarm over Ukraine. It’s revolution, they claimed, is the
result of an American alliance with Nazis intended to weaken Russia. And
still, nearly three quarters of the population oppose a Russian
“reaction” of any kind, let alone a Russian military occupation like
they are now watching unfold in Crimea. The 2008 invasion of Georgia had
much broader support, because Georgia is not Ukraine. Ukraine is a
nation of Slavs with deep cultural and historical ties to Russia. Most
Russians have at least some family or friends living in Ukraine, and the
idea of a fratricidal war between the two largest Slavic nations in the
world evokes a kind of horror that no Kremlin whitewash can calm.
Indeed,
Monday’s survey suggests that the influence of Putin’s television
channels is breaking down. The blatant misinformation and demagoguery on
Russian television coverage of Ukraine seems to have pushed Russians to
go online for their information. And as for those who still have no
Internet connection, they could simply have picked up the phone and
called their panicked friends and relatives in Ukraine.
So what
about Russia’s nationalists? The war-drum thumping Liberal Democratic
party, a right-wing puppet of the Kremlin, has been screaming for Russia
to send in the tanks. On Feb. 28, as troops began appearing on the
streets of Crimea, the leader of that party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, was
on the scene handing out wads of cash
to a cheering crowd of locals in the city of Sevastopol, home of
Russia’s Black Sea fleet. “Give it to the women, the old maids, the
pregnant, the lonely, the divorced,” he told the crowd from atop a
chair. “Russia is rich. We’ll give everybody everything.” But in
Monday’s survey, 82% of his party’s loyalists rejected any such
generosity. Even the adherents of the Communist Party, who tend to feel
entitled to all of Russia’s former Soviet domains, said with a broad
majority – 62% – that Russia should not jump into Ukraine’s internal
crisis.
That does not
necessarily mean Putin will face an uprising at home. So far, the
anti-war protests in Moscow have looked almost pathetically temperate.
But sociologists have been saying for years that Putin’s core electorate
is dwindling. What underpins his popularity – roughly 60% approved of
his rule before this crisis started – is a total lack of viable
alternatives to Putin’s rule. But this decision is sure to eat away at
the passive mass of his supporters, especially in Russia’s biggest
cities.
In Monday’s survey,
30% of respondents from Moscow and St. Petersburg said that Russia could
see massive political protests of the kind that overthrew the Ukrainian
government last month. Putin’s only means of forestalling that kind of
unrest is to crack down hard and early. So on Feb. 28, Russia’s most
prominent opposition activist Alexei Navalny was put under house arrest
less than six months after he won 30% of the vote in the Moscow mayoral
race. Expect more of the same if the opposition to Putin’s intervention
starts to find its voice.
The economic impact on Russia is already staggering.
When markets opened on Monday morning, investors got their first chance
to react to the Russian intervention in Ukraine over the weekend, and
as a result, the key Russian stock indexes tanked by more than 10%. That
amounts to almost $60 billion in stock value wiped out in the course of
a day, more than Russia spent preparing for last month’s Winter Olympic
Games in Sochi. The state-controlled natural gas monopoly Gazprom,
which accounts for roughly a quarter of Russian tax revenues, lost
$15 billion in market value in one day – incidentally the same amount
of money Russia promised to the teetering regime in Ukraine in December
and then revoked in January as the revolution took hold.
The
value of the Russian currency meanwhile dropped against the dollar to
its lowest point on record, and the Russian central bank spent
$10 billion on the foreign exchange markets trying to prop it up. “This
has to fundamentally change the way investors and ratings agencies view
Russia,” said Timothy Ash, head of emerging market research at Standard
Bank. At a time when Russia’s economic growth was already stagnating,
“This latest military adventure will increase capital flight, weaken
Russian asset prices, slow investment and economic activity and growth.
Western financial sanctions on Russia will hurt further,” Ash told the Wall Street Journal.
Even Russia’s closest allies want no part of this.
The oil-rich state of Kazakhstan, the most important member of every
regional alliance Russia has going in the former Soviet space, put out a
damning statement
on Monday, marking the first time its leaders have ever turned against
Russia on such a major strategic issue: “Kazakhstan expresses deep
concern over the developments in Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said.
“Kazakhstan calls on all sides to stop the use of force in the
resolution of this situation.”
What likely worries Russia’s neighbors most is the statement
the Kremlin made on March 2, after Putin spoke on the phone with U.N.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “Vladimir Putin noted that in case of any
escalation of violence against the Russian-speaking population of the
eastern regions of Ukraine and Crimea, Russia would not be able to stay
away and would resort to whatever measures are necessary in compliance
with international law.” This sets a horrifying precedent for all of
Russia’s neighbors.
Every
single state in the former Soviet Union, from Central Asia to the
Baltics, has a large Russian-speaking population, and this statement
means that Russia reserves the right to invade when it feels that
population is threatened. The natural reaction of any Russian ally in
the region would be to seek security guarantees against becoming the
next Ukraine. For countries in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus,
including Armenia, a stanch Russian ally, that would likely stir desires
for a closer alliance with NATO and the European Union.
For the countries of Central Asia, Russia’s traditional stomping ground
on the geopolitical map of the world, that would mean strengthening
ties with nearby China, including military ones.
China,
which has long been Russia’s silent partner on all issues of global
security from Syria to Iran, has also issued cautious statements
regarding Russia’s actions in Ukraine. “It is China’s long-standing
position not to interfere in others’ internal affairs,” the Foreign
Ministry reportedly said in a statement on Sunday. “We respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
So
in the course of one weekend, Putin has spooked all of the countries he
wanted to include in his grand Eurasian Union, the bloc of nations he
hoped would make Russia a regional power again. The only gung-ho
participants in that alliance so far have been Kazakhstan (see above)
and Belarus, which is known as Europe’s last dictatorship. Its leader,
Alexander Lukashenko, has so far remained silent on the Russian
intervention in Ukraine. But last week, Belarus recognized the
legitimacy of the new revolutionary government in Kiev, marking a major
break from Russia, which has condemned Ukraine’s new leaders as
extremists and radicals. The Belarusian ambassador in Kiev even congratulated Ukraine’s new Foreign Minister on taking office and said he looks forward to working with him.
As
for the impoverished nation of Armenia, a late-comer to Russia’s
fledgling Eurasian alliance, it has also recognized the new government
in Kiev while stopping short of any official condemnation of Putin’s
intervention in Ukraine so far. But on Saturday, prominent politicians
led an anti-Putin demonstration in the Armenia capital. “We are not
against Russia,” said
the country’s former Minister of National Security David Shakhnazaryan.
“We are against the imperial policies of Putin and the Kremlin.”
Russia’s isolation from the West will deepen dramatically.
In June, Putin was planning to welcome the leaders of the G8, a club of
western powers (plus Japan), in the Russian resort city of Sochi. But
on Sunday, all of them announced
they had halted their preparations for attending the summit in protest
at Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. So much for Putin’s hard-fought
seat at the table with the leaders of the western world.
In
recent years, one of Russia’s greatest points of contention with the
West has been over NATO’s plans to build of a missile shield in Europe.
Russia has seen this as a major threat to its security, as the shield
could wipe out Russia’s ability to launch nuclear missiles at the West.
The long-standing nuclear deterrent that has protected Russia from
Western attacks for generations – the Cold War doctrine of mutually
assured destruction, or MAD – could thus be negated, Russia’s generals have warned.
But after Russia decided to unilaterally invade its neighbor to the
west this weekend, any remaining resistance to the missile shield
project would be pushed aside by the renewed security concerns of
various NATO members, primarily those in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
Whatever hopes Russia had of forestalling the construction of the
missile shield through diplomacy are now most likely lost.
No less worrying for Putin would be the economic sanctions the West is preparing
in answer to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Depending on their
intensity, those could cut off the ability of Russian companies and
businessmen in getting western loans and trading with most of the
world’s largest economies. Putin’s allies could also find it a lot more
difficult to send their children to study in the West or to keep their
assets in Western banks, as they now almost universally do. All of that
raises the risk for Putin of a split in his inner circle and,
potentially, even of a palace coup. There is hardly anything more
important to Russia’s political elite than the security of their foreign
assets, certainly not their loyalty to a leader who seems willing to
put all of that at risk.
And what about the upside for Putin?
There doesn’t seem to be much of it, at least not compared to the
damage he stands to inflict on Russia and himself. But he does look set
to accomplish a few things. For one, he demonstrates to the world that
his red lines, unlike those of the White House, cannot be crossed.
If
Ukraine’s revolutionary government moves ahead with their planned
integration into the E.U. and possibly NATO, the military alliance that
Russia sees as its main strategic threat would move right up to Russia’s
western borders and, in Crimea, it would surround the Russian Black Sea
fleet. That is a major red line for Putin and his generals.
By
sending troops into Crimea and, potentially, into eastern Ukraine,
Russia could secure a buffer around Russia’s strategic naval fleet and
at its western border. For the military brass in Moscow, those are vital
priorities, and their achievement is worth a great deal of sacrifice.
Over the weekend, Putin’s actions showed that he is listening carefully
to his generals. At the same time, he seems to be ignoring the outrage
coming from pretty much everyone else.
"Time," March 3, 2014
Russia supplies the lion's share of Europe's natural gas. Can Europe live without gas?
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