Ukraine Without Brakes

The Ukrainian drama is growing darker. The succession of clashes and their severity accentuated the deterioration and the possibility of a large-scale armed conflict. The latest incidents — the pro-Russian separatists’ capture and subsequent display of a group of military observers from the OSCE, and the attack on the mayor of the second largest city — underlie a conflict that diplomatic efforts turn up empty. The promises made by Moscow in Geneva on April 17 to contain the crisis are worthless; mere distractions from the determination of Vladimir Putin to destabilize Ukraine.

The new economic sanctions against Russian companies and individuals close to power, announced yesterday by the U.S. and the EU, will not change the situation. Obama’s ambition to coordinate with Europe on the Kremlin’s punishment is diluted by the lack of Western political will. The timid gradualism of sanctions and lack of conviction — especially by Europe, where Germany exercises a decisive braking role at the crossroads of historical guilt and the influence of political and industrial lobbies — makes them a more of a propaganda tool than an effective punishment. Putin’s big challenge in Ukraine assumes that European discrepancies and Obama’s dislike for confrontation will act to dilute the international response.

The heroic days of Kiev preceding the flight of President Yanukovych — greeted by the gullible as the triumph of democracy and European values over the Russian black hole — have favored a misreading of the Ukrainian script. More than two months later, a country divided and ruined, with a powerless caretaker government, a symbolic army and 40,000 Russian soldiers ready on its border, watches the multiplication of incidents that portend serious rupture. The scenario shows the titanic difficulties to be overcome in order to make the presidential elections of May a representative exercise.

Despite Bosnia and Georgia, Europeans had been assuming that their security and freedoms were immutable. Ukraine shows that they are not. They are still debating in the Pentagon and Europe about President Putin’s real intentions. But whether the current escalation is a show of strength to later appease the tension and then consolidate the gains, as if the Russian maneuvers in the border presage a military intervention, it is Moscow who is wining the hand and writing the tragic script to the trailer in which Europe and the United States are acting.

The events in Ukraine show the need for the West to rethink Russia’s actions in a broader context. The dark power that Putin represents not only seeks to redress old grievances of which he considers himself a victim. His regime is both personal and authoritarian, and it is determined to reinterpret the Cold War rules, and not only in Europe.