Putin has announced a military operation in the two breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Western media calls this an invasion. As Putin was careful to point out in his last address, the Russian intervention is in keeping with the US charter. Donetsk and Luhansk have announced their independence and Russia has recognised them. Russia has a mutual defence treaty with both. Thus, the Russian intervention is comparable to its intervention in Syria.
The West thought that Putin would respond to Ukraine's provocations in the Donbass region through a direct assault on Ukraine. Putin has not done so. His troops have moved into the two breakaway republics. If Ukraine attacks Russian troops, Putin will retaliate.
The West has responded with sanctions that even the Western media finds trifling. Harsher sanctions may follow. The West must understand that sovereign states will be willing to put up with sanctions of any order where they believe national security is threatened. North Korea has done that. So has Iran. The West has been unable to cripple them militarily whatever the economic price they have paid. With Russia, the West has an even lesser chance.
What we are seeing is a Russian attempt to redefine international relations. No longer is Russia willing to allow the US to lay down the law- at least where Russia's immediate periphery is concerned. The US and NATO will not be allowed to station missiles in Russia's periphery and threaten Russian security. Period. If any nation in the Russian periphery does not accept this position and plays along with the West, it will pay the price. That is what Ukraine is learning the hard way. Putin has made it clear that Russia has no interest in re-absorbing Ukraine or any the other erstwhile republics into itself as long as Russian security is not threatened.
The West refused to buy this. It has sought to portray Putin as an aggressor who wants to recrate the Soviet empire. Just three days ago, economist Jeffrey Sachs made an impassioned plea for the West not to mis-represent Putin's position and to guarantee that NATO enlargement would not include Ukraine or other states in Russia's periphery:
Many insist that Nato enlargement is not the real issue for Putin and that he wants to recreate the Russian empire, pure and simple. Everything else, including Nato enlargement, they claim, is a mere distraction.
This is utterly mistaken. Russia has adamantly opposed Nato expansion towards the east for 30 years, first under Boris Yeltsin and now Putin. Before that, the Soviet Union largely opposed Nato expansion, too.
It is easy to understand why. The US would not be very happy were Mexico to join a China-led military alliance, nor was it content when Fidel Castro’s Cuba aligned with the USSR 60 years ago.
Neither the US nor Russia wants the other’s military on their doorstep. Pledging no Nato enlargement is not appeasement. It does not cede Ukrainian territory. It does not undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty. It would in fact help to secure it. Ukraine should aspire to resemble the non-Nato members of the EU: Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden.
The West refused to give the necessary guarantees. It was willing for more talks of the sort that have led nowhere for the past eight years. It underestimated Putin's resolve.
Will there be a full-blown conflict? Not if the West concedes Putin's point and lays off. If the West chooses to interfere in Ukraine and provoke further conflict, all bets are off.
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