A s Russia’s leader holds his ground in his invasion of Ukraine, increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, the leadership of the United States and its European allies becomes ever more essential.
The harsh, immediate and wide-ranging sanctions ordered after the invasion — including a freeze on Russian funds abroad and on the assets of its central bank, bans on dealings with several major Russian banks, restrictions on Russian flights to the West and personal sanctions on Vladimir Putin and some of his senior lieutenants — were appropriate. While these sanctions have not persuaded Russia to stop, they have demonstrated that there are consequences for unprovoked wars of aggression. The ruble tanked, the Russian stock market plunged and Russians lined up at ATMs to withdraw money. Putin vented his frustration by putting Russia’s nuclear forces on a heightened alert.
Putin’s readiness to invoke nuclear weapons and attack a nuclear power plant added another fearful dimension to his aggression. But President Joe Biden wisely refused to escalate, canceled a planned missile test and repeated that the United States has not pledged to defend Ukraine with troops.
Some of Europe’s leaders have also risen to the challenge. Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, reversed decades of German policy and tradition, sharply boosting military spending and rearming itself to counter Russia’s menace. Hungary’s Viktor Orban, a fan of Putin, nevertheless joined much of Europe in condemning what he called Russia’s “military action.” Finland, which had long accepted that its survival depended on deference to Russia, declared that it would send weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. Even Switzerland, that bastion of neutrality and keeper of secrets, announced that it would freeze Russian financial assets.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
All of this, of course, represented Europe’s best effort to live up to the example set by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the 44-year-old president of Ukraine. Exhausted, unshaven and defiant, he has shown us the face of heroic resistance. In an address to his country Thursday, he said, “I don’t want Ukraine’s history to be a legend about 300 Spartans. I want peace.”
On the battlefield, the invasion force Putin built over several months along Ukraine’s borders on the flimsy pretext of the modernization of Russian forces ran into unexpected resistance from regular and irregular Ukrainian forces. While casualty figures are difficult to verify, one U.S. official estimated that Russian losses are more than 2,000 — possibly the same as Ukrainian casualties.
This first phase of resistance is unlikely to last long, however, making it imperative that the world continue to coalesce around the same message to Ukrainians and Russians alike: No matter how long it takes, Ukraine will be free.
The Biden administration and its allies have an opening to speak directly to the stunned people of Russia and say plainly that their president is destroying their future and lying to them about the goals of his war. Putin is well aware that his support in the Russian public is brittle and could crumble if his lies are exposed. Already, thousands of Russians have been arrested for demonstrating against the war, and two leading liberal media outlets, Echo of Moscow and TV Rain, have been all but silenced. Weakening public support for Putin may not force him to retreat from Ukraine, but it could raise questions in his entourage about his future.
The obscenely wealthy Russian oligarchs also may not have sway over Putin’s actions. But if they lose their London town houses and swollen bank accounts and confront the possibility of criminal prosecution in the United States, as Biden promised, others in Russia’s kleptocracy might begin to wonder whether Putin is a liability.
One way to reinforce this message is for the White House to continue sharing its intelligence on the doings in the Kremlin. Predicting every move Putin made before the invasion has, so far, been an effective strategy. It allowed the world to see the full hypocrisy of his scheme, has strengthened unity in the United States and Europe, and is opening eyes in Russia. And it might create a healthy element of paranoia in the Kremlin.
European countries dependent on Russian oil and gas, Germany first among them, have to start preparing for a future as independent of Russia as possible. Germany has suspended certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline; the next step must be to rapidly expand facilities for handling liquefied natural gas and alternate sources of energy. This would be a good moment for Scholz to reopen the case in Germany for nuclear power and for continuing to operate its remaining nuclear power plants.
And both Europe and the United States must reevaluate their relations with China, a far more important economic partner than Russia. A similar breakdown in the United States’ relationship with China is not inevitable. While significant issues divide the two nations, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, spoke publicly recently about the potential for cooperation with the United States on global infrastructure projects. After issuing a 5,000-word declaration of friendship with Russia weeks before the invasion and amplifying Russian misinformation, the Chinese government may now be trying to put some distance between itself and the Russian war of choice.
At home, the Biden administration should stop reassuring the public that our nation will pay little to no cost for this conflict. For one, while it is clear that Putin’s current aim is to take over all of Ukraine, his erratic behavior makes it impossible to predict his next move. If he took military action against Poland or the Baltic States, the United States would have to honor its pledge to defend its NATO allies.
More immediately, while the U.S. government is right to combat inflation and a rapid rise in prices, the administration’s duty is to warn that standing up to Putin may well contribute to higher prices and that Americans should be prepared to accept a measure of sacrifice as part of the free, democratic, interconnected world. It is not too late to sound that call.
In the near term, the need to support Ukraine — short of putting Western boots on the ground there — is obvious, and much of the world has responded.
Whatever new order might emerge from this terrible war and the likely occupation of Ukraine, it is the duty of every leader to prepare their countries for it, even if the pain it will cause is still unknown.