U.S. and European leaders, despite their tough talk, aren’t planning to clamp down on Russia anytime soon over its increased aggression in eastern Ukraine.
While they gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a frosty reception at last weekend’s G-20 summit in Australia, Europe and the United States are not ready to impose new sanctions as a Sept. 5 ceasefire crumbles and the possibility of renewed war between Kiev and Russian-backed separatists draws closer.
“At this point, the sanctions that we have in place are biting plenty good,” Obama told reporters Sunday at his post-summit news conference.
Though European Union foreign ministers on Monday agreed to add more separatists to a blacklist of sanctioned individuals, they stopped short of new sanctions against Moscow, calling instead for more dialogue.
“Sanctions in themselves are not an objective,” said Federica Mogherini, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs.
Putin, who left the summit early on Sunday, appears to still be in control of what happens next in Ukraine, insisting in an interview broadcast late Sunday that Moscow would act as guarantor of the rights of Russian-backed separatists and would not allow them to be defeated.
“This points to the fact, that you want the Ukrainian central authorities to annihilate everyone there, all of their political foes and opponents. Is that what you want?” Putin told Germany’s ARD television, according to a Kremlin transcript.
“We certainly don’t. And we won’t let it happen.”
In his interview with ARD, Putin suggested, however, that Moscow would not recognize the independent “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk declared by separatists after a Nov. 2 referendum.
“Let’s try to achieve a single political space in those territories,” he said. “We are ready to move in this direction, but only together.”
As the separatists have used the ceasefire to consolidate their hold on the two regions, rhetoric from Washington and European capitals has not changed.
In his post-summit news conference, Obama said his conversations with Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 and at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit last week in Beijing were “no different than what I’ve said publicly as well as what I’ve said to him privately over the course of this crisis in Ukraine, and that is Russia has the opportunity to take a different path, to resolve the issue of Ukraine in a way that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and is consistent with international law.”
Though Obama, European and NATO leaders continue to insist Russia is becoming increasingly isolated over Putin’s stance on Ukraine, Moscow’s position there continues to improve.
“There is no doubt anymore about Russia’s direct military involvement in Ukraine,” Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, said in a Nov. 12 speech in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Breedlove said that Russian support for the separatists continues to increase, and he noted recently on Twitter that drones operated by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observers monitoring the ceasefire were being targeted by “high-end” anti-aircraft weapons and jammers.
Meanwhile, Putin’s early departure from the G-20 is being seen in Russia as a victory.
“I think that in this case the sign was that Putin plans to behave in Ukraine as he thinks is necessary, not as the G-20 leaders expect him to,” Reuters quoted political commentator Georgy Satarov as saying.
And Russia’s leverage on Europe will grow as winter approaches: About 30 percent of the natural gas Europeans need to heat their homes comes from Russia. Germany depends on Russia for more than a third of its supply.
Geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan, who argues that Putin is pushing against the West to forestall a coming population disaster for Russia, says the tables won’t turn unless a united Europe, backed by the United States, decides to challenge Moscow.
“But there’s not even a hint of that at the present,” he said.
