{"id":70141,"date":"2022-02-01T13:02:12","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=70141"},"modified":"2022-03-10T13:20:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T02:20:29","slug":"russia-and-ukraine-looking-beyond-the-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/russia-and-ukraine-looking-beyond-the-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia and Ukraine: looking beyond the crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In the 10 months since Russia began building up troop numbers<\/a> on its Ukraine border, it still isn\u2019t crystal clear what President Vladimir Putin will accept as a resolution to the crisis he has generated, short of the unacceptable\u2014a moratorium on NATO expansion and the withdrawal of NATO from eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

For the next two weeks at least, Russia has booked in diplomatic engagements<\/a> with the US in Berlin as it continues its military build-up, including in Belarus<\/a>, whose border with Ukraine is poorly defended.<\/p>\n

According to Fiona Hill<\/a>, who served as the Russia lead on the US National Security Council during Donald Trump\u2019s presidency, this guessing game is one of the key problems facing US President Joe Biden, Ukraine and the EU as they attempt to find a pathway through the crisis.<\/p>\n

\u2018Putin has said he wants the moon, the stars, the world, the universe, the sun\u2014you name it. We need to find a floor to that. But maybe there isn\u2019t one anymore, and that puts Biden and everyone else in an impossible situation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Putin has another big advantage, says Hill, in that he and the people around him are on the same page and have few checks and balances limiting their timing and choices.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s different for the US. There are variable levels of bipartisan support for strong action against Russia. In addition, says Hill, \u2018we have to act with our allies and Ukraine is not ours to give away. And Biden has to worry about the midterms, the 2024 election, the press, pushback from everybody imaginable. We have an awful lot of disadvantages. It really does look like Putin\u2019s got all the cards and is in the driver\u2019s seat here.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is also partly about Putin\u2019s long authoritarian incumbency. \u2018We change leaders all the time. Putin\u2019s been Putin. He\u2019s been there for 21 years; at the same time, the US has had five different presidents. He stays and he stews and gets frustrated, so he\u2019s decided to kind of just blow the place up and get everyone\u2019s full attention.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the face of this uncertainty, Hill says that it is imperative that democratic allies in the West figure out what they want, not just how to respond to Russia\u2019s provocations. This means thinking through the current crisis to the world that the West wants afterwards.<\/p>\n

Much has been made of the variety of European responses over the past couple of weeks. Germany initially ruled out sanctions on the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and France briefly floated a Russia\u2013EU security pact, which Russia rebuffed. Meanwhile, the Baltic states have been working with Washington to transfer their own Javelin missiles to Ukraine, and the UK has sent anti-tank munitions.<\/p>\n

Some of these differences seem to be resolving. Germany\u2019s new government looks like it has changed course<\/a> on Nord Stream 2, and Biden has managed to get domestic and EU support for the \u2018mother of all sanctions packages\u2019<\/a> should Russia decide to invade Ukraine.<\/p>\n

But Hill agrees with the view<\/a> that one of Russia\u2019s most successful power plays over the past 20 years has been the infiltration of political and economic elites in the EU and UK.<\/p>\n

\u2018You have former cabinet members in the UK, prominent officials, including an ex-chancellor of Germany, working for major Russian companies. The Russians have been able to put money all over the place and use it as leverage,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\u2018And I think we\u2019ve really weakened our position. I\u2019m not opposed to finding a different way of creating a non-confrontational relationship with Russia. But allowing Russia to exploit our own corruption is not the way to do that. We have to basically live up to our own principles and values and not be bought off.\u2019<\/p>\n

Part of thinking through to the other side of the crisis is that while Putin seems to be holding all the cards now\u2014including high oil and gas prices that are contributing to politically damaging inflation in the US and EU\u2014that could change.<\/p>\n

In the next decade, Russia will almost certainly have to go through two very tricky transitions: the global energy transition, which is likely to dramatically affect Russia\u2019s bottom line, and the transition of power from Putin.<\/p>\n

\u2018Putin is the wildcard in the system. He doesn\u2019t want to actually say who he\u2019s thinking of as a successor, because then he becomes a lame duck. There\u2019s all the speculation all the time about his health. He\u2019ll be 70 this year. This makes Russia look like an unstable monarchy. At least in the Soviet period, there was a succession order.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hill argues that the energy transition is as serious and is possibly another reason why Putin is trying to change the game.<\/p>\n

\u2018Right now, Russia dominates the German energy sector and other parts of Eastern Europe, and gas prices are high because of shortages in production and Covid ups and downs. But the climate change summit that we just had in Glasgow suggests a world that is really going to have to move away from hydrocarbons. Australia is grappling with that as well.<\/p>\n

\u2018That doesn\u2019t look like a world where Russia is going to dominate. Russia isn\u2019t renowned for its green technologies. They look like they\u2019re going to have some major problems with the melting of their permafrost. And they\u2019ve had huge forest fires, just like you\u2019ve had in Australia.\u2019<\/p>\n

Putin has a short time to maximise what is possibly peak leverage for geopolitical gain. \u2018If you\u2019re Putin,\u2019 concludes Hill, \u2018and you are kind of thinking along to the future, it doesn\u2019t look quite so rosy. So it\u2019s more about how do you strike while you can.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 10 months since Russia began building up troop numbers on its Ukraine border, it still isn\u2019t crystal clear what President Vladimir Putin will accept as a resolution to the crisis he has generated, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1182,"featured_media":70147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1858,163,714,744],"class_list":["post-70141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-authoritarianism","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-vladimir-putin","dinkus-russia-ukraine-war"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRussia and Ukraine: looking beyond the crisis | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/russia-and-ukraine-looking-beyond-the-crisis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia and Ukraine: looking beyond the crisis | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the 10 months since Russia began building up troop numbers on its Ukraine border, it still isn\u2019t crystal clear what President Vladimir Putin will accept as a resolution to the crisis he has generated, ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/russia-and-ukraine-looking-beyond-the-crisis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-01T02:02:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-10T02:20:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/GettyImages-1366270236.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anastasia Kapetas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anastasia Kapetas\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/russia-and-ukraine-looking-beyond-the-crisis\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/GettyImages-1366270236.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/GettyImages-1366270236.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"KYIV, UKRAINE - JANUARY 22: Civilians, including Tatiana (L), 21, a university veterinary medicine student who is also enrolled in a military reserve program, participate in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit training on a Saturday in a forest on January 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. 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