Russia’s latest attempts to force its will on Ukraine were squelched last week. Once again, the feisty democracy deserves the world’s admiration. But it deserves more.
At the Normandy talks in Paris in December, with Germany, France, and Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stopped President Vladimir Putin’s latest schemes to violate further Ukraine’s sovereignty.
First, his power play to overtake Donbas by demanding a change to Ukraine’s constitution failed. Elections in the Russia-occupied regions will not take place while Putin’s troops are on the ground.
Next, his sly attempt to control the peace process by injecting Luhansk and Donetsk puppets into a coordinating council with Ukraine, France, and Germany was denied. It was Russia’s intention to use the council to extricate itself from any responsibility for the war by participating only as an “observer”. By being “uninvolved” it could legitimately seek the abolition of sanctions.
The scam didn’t work. The council was nixed; the sanctions stay put. They are a huge problem for Putin, but not his only one.
Following the massive military rehearsals for his now-canceled World War II celebrations, and the huge Easter gatherings promoted by the Kremlin-controlled Orthodox Church–other denominations adhered to the lockdown– the pandemic numbers are escalating. His prime minister and top oligarch cronies are sick. Doctors are jumping—or being pushed?– out of windows.
More problems. His ratings are low; oil prices even lower. There are labor protests on the energy fields in Siberia; a mayor has been assassinated. Putin has yet to obtain the constitutional change that would make him president for life, while the NordStream2 project with Germany is kaput. Ukraine has successfully blocked United Nations resolutions for sanctions’ removal, and the Security Council is calling for a universal end to war.
It’s not surprising that Russia’s president is lobbying— pleading– for sanction forgiveness. But the commensurate quid prop quo –complying with international law and removing his troops from Ukraine—is brazenly missing.
Clearly, Putin is not yet ready to be taken off the hook. Instead, it’s time to press the aggressor harder to make him stop, repent, and become a law-abiding global player.
One proposal, from three former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine, offers the lifting of sanctions if Russia ends the war and withdraws from Ukraine. They agree, however, that Putin will say “yes, yes, good” to everything and deliver nothing. The breached Minsk and Budapest agreements attest to that.
The quid pro quo for lifting sanctions must be matched. It can be nothing less than Ukraine’s membership in NATO. This doesn’t suit Putin? Tough! His war in Ukraine and global chaos doesn’t suit global security!
It’s time to get tougher with Russia and this time not screw Ukraine. The West, with its powers, institutions, diplomacy—or, perhaps, due to its penetration by pro-Russia assets and ongoing Russo-centrism— has done it too often.
Recall how the punishing Versailles and Yalta agreements after both wars smashed Ukraine’s national aspirations and created genocides of enormous proportions. Or, America’s appalling chicken Kyiv speech after the 1991 independence. Now, it’s the ongoing refusals for NATO membership, questionable when most post-USSR nations have already joined, and shameful in light of the death toll and destruction that Russia has wrought on Ukraine for wanting to be European, democratic and a member.
Similarly, with the ever-moving time frame for joining the European Union: The questionable advice not to fight Russia’s invasion of Crimea; to give up on Donbas; to hold up its end of Minsk peace process at the cost of some 14,000 dead soldiers while Russia violates with abandon.
It’s an undistinguished historic record. As the saying goes: with such friends who needs enemies?
After six years of war and escalating global treachery, democracies need to admit that conceding to Putin has done very little but promote his global agenda.
Such an admission would make it easier for Zelenskyy to move forward without having to nod, as do others, that Minsk as the only way to peace. It’s not. It’s dead because Russia has breached it.
This entitles Ukraine’s president to walk out and find a new way. He must also debunk the view that sanctions are tied to the peace talks. This is a red herring: sanctions exist because Russia invaded and savaged a sovereign country and continues to do so.
On the 75th anniversary on the end to World War II, Russia only talks peace but actions war and chaos. There is no remorse. Yet it has the gall to hold democracies and NATO to ransom with threats. The latest appear on menacing banners in Europe’s capitals proclaiming “Можем повторить! We can repeat.”
This is not an idle threat. Russia’s unrelenting aggression must be countered starting with a new peace plan with teeth. It will work to end the war in Ukraine and accept its membership in NATO in exchange for the removal of sanctions on Russia. Ukraine deserves this.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn, a former senior policy advisor for the government of Canada and president of a consulting firm doing business in Ukraine, writes on international issues dealing with Ukraine. She is a founding member of the Canadian Group for Democracy in Ukraine.
