Page 74 - bnemagazine bne_December 2021_20211203.pdf

74 Opinion
bne December 2021
of the alliance. We have tripled the size of our response force. More presence in the air, on land, the sea – in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea. And all this of course demonstrates to Russia that there will be consequences if they once again use force against and independent sovereign Ukraine.”
Some have suggested that by moving up troops closer to Ukraine, but in insufficient numbers to threaten an actual imminent invasion, Putin is creating a new Cuban Missile crisis to get some leverage over the White House in possible talks. His intention is to hammer home that the recent increases in weap- ons delivery and military aid is destabilising and Russia won’t tolerate Ukraine being turned into a “giant unsinkable aircraft carrier parked on Russia’s border,” as Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center called Ukraine.
"Obviously, since [the last build up of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border in] April Moscow has discovered that a new Cuban Missile Crisis over Ukraine could be very effective
in getting Biden’s attention and inflaming his desire for
a personal engagement with Putin," said Vladimir Frolov,
a former Russian diplomat in the United States who is now
a foreign policy analyst, as cited by Reuters.
The calculation seems to be that, as Biden clearly wants to downgrade the “Russia problem” so he can concentrate on China and domestic politics, that gives the Kremlin real leverage over the White House by demonstrating its ability to escalate the situation with Ukraine at will. The hope would appear to be by escalating, the White House will be willing to cut a quick deal or give the guarantees on freezing the situation with Ukraine
– the “red lines” that Putin is talking about – so that the US can move on to deal with its foreign policy priorities.
In a big foreign policy speech, Putin said Moscow had no appetite for war, but suggested that Russia's posture in eastern Europe was paying some dividends and making its adversaries take heed.
"Our recent warnings have had a certain effect: tensions have arisen there anyway," Putin said. "It is important for them
to remain in this state for as long as possible, so it does not occur to them to stage some kind of conflict on our western borders... we do not need a new conflict."
The Kremlin leader then ordered Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to push for serious long-term guarantees from the West that he said could ensure Russia's security.
Russia has taken a much harder line with the west since Lavrov gave a new rules of the game speech in February where he said that Russia was no longer willing to accept the dual policy in the west of imposing value-based sanctions with one hand and asking for cooperation in solving big geopolitical problems or doing business with the other. Moreover, Lavrov went on to say shortly afterwards that Russia was willing
to break off diplomatic relations with Europe entirely. And
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the Kremlin went as far as actually breaking off diplomatic relations with Nato entirely in October.
Part of the explanation could also be that the US is playing
the same card on Russia that the Kremlin played in April: deliberately fanning the flames of war talk in an effort to unite Europe around its backing of Ukraine and negate the threat of Russia’s troop movements.
One element that supports this take is that the concerns about the Russian troop build up have largely been driven by the
US intelligence services. Russia did move up some powerful new military units close to Ukraine, but the White House has called the Kremlin's bluff by playing up these moves to make Russia look like an aggressor and put it into a defence position, forcing it to deny its spoiling for war.
The fears began with a Washington Post report at the end of October and that has been followed by regular statements. But what is different from the April build up is the lack of supporting evidence on social media and also the apparent lack of concern in Kyiv or any visible signs of preparation for war by Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine’s border guards and military did start a large exercise this week, but on the border with Belarus that was designed to stop migrants crossing over in Ukraine.
“One of the interesting things about the latest uptick in
“is Russia about to invade Ukraine?” speculation is that (unusually) it’s been western countries talking it up - not Ukraine,” Jonah Fisher of the BBC tweeted at the weekend.
The US administration has been aggressively pushing this story with largest part of the reporing on the tensions still sourced from US intelligence reports and statements from a wide variety of senior US officials. Unlike the very public
“Obviously, since April Moscow has discovered that a new Cuban Missile Crisis over Ukraine could be very effective in getting Biden’s attention”
build up of Russian troops in April, the amount of social media footage showing troop movements and local reports from the ground on social media to support the story is signficantly less.
If this is a ruse by the White House to define the terms of the upcoming summit then it seems to be working. The Kremlin has sounded increasingly shrill in denials of an ill intent and its complaints about the US ignoring its “red lines” have become lost in the noise. In its place the talk of new even harsher sanctions is back that has already hit both the value of the ruble and ended a year-long stock market rally.