Russian President Vladimir Putin’s allegation that Ukraine is committing “genocide” against ethnic Russians belies his purported interest in a diplomatic resolution to the looming threat of war in Europe, according to senior Senate Democrats.
“There is no genocide in the Donbas. Those are all pretextual [allegations],” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, told the Washington Examiner. “He’s looking to create a reason for his actions, but there is no reason for his actions.”
Putin and his senior advisers made a televised display of interest in additional security talks with Western powers earlier this week, followed by a purported withdrawal of some of the prospective invasion force. Yet Russian officials paired those signals with other statements that characterize the Ukrainian government as provoking a conflict.
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“In our view, what is happening in Donbas today is, in fact, genocide,” Putin said Tuesday, in reference to the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian proxies that has festered in eastern Ukraine since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine.
Putin aired that allegation while sparring with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about whether NATO represents a threat to Russian security. The Kremlin chief condemned NATO’s bombing of Serbian forces in Yugoslavia in 1999, which prompted Scholz to justify that military operation by emphasizing the “danger and a threat of genocide” by Serbian forces against Kosovo Albanians.
“That doesn’t pass the laugh test,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the New Hampshire Democrat who chairs the Foreign Relations subcommittee for Europe, replied when asked about Putin’s genocide allegation. “The threat of an invasion of Ukraine is very real and potentially imminent.”
Putin’s retort carries additional significance given that the recently revised Russian Constitution claims for Moscow the prerogative to protect Russians in other countries. “The Russian Federation provides support to compatriots living abroad in exercising their rights, ensuring the protection of their interests, and preserving their shared Russian cultural identity,” the constitution says.
Another Russian official stated the threat of a Russian attack more explicitly for Putin without echoing his claim that a genocide is already underway.
“We will not invade Ukraine unless we are provoked to do that,” Russian Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov, who is Putin’s envoy to the European Union, said Tuesday. “If the Ukrainians launch an attack against Russia, you shouldn’t be surprised if we counterattack — or if they start blatantly killing Russian citizens anywhere, Donbas or wherever.”
Those threats dovetail with Western claims that Russian forces remain in position to attack Ukraine despite Moscow’s claims to the contrary.
“Russia continues to build up military capabilities near Ukraine,” British Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull, the United Kingdom’s chief of defense intelligence, said in a Wednesday afternoon bulletin. “This includes sightings of additional armored vehicles, helicopters, and a field hospital moving towards Ukraine’s borders. Russia has the military mass in place to conduct an invasion of Ukraine.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a televised appearance early Wednesday morning, said Putin has created the option to “pull the trigger” on a conflict. “He could pull it today, he could pull it tomorrow, he could pull it next week,” he said. “The forces are there if he wants to renew aggression against Ukraine.”
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U.S. lawmakers and officials also have said they’re not certain he will do so. “Putin made a big deal of a withdrawal from Georgia eight days before he invaded, so there is precedent [for] Putin making noise about moving one way when he’s actually making plans to move the other way,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who also sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Examiner.
“So I would be wasting my time and everybody else’s if I spent effort trying to creep inside Vladimir Putin’s head.”
