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The Guardian view on the Ukraine
conflict: Swift action needed
On the
eastern rims of Europe, a bad situation is getting nastier. The war in Ukraine,
which has already claimed over 5,000 lives in nine months, has been threatening
to take on larger dimensions. Pro-Russian separatists have been on the offensive
in a big way, for the first time since August 2014. Their objective is to carve
out a corridor to the Black Sea port of Mariupol, potentially opening a land
bridge to Crimea, which Russia has already annexed. None of this would be
possible without the increasing direct backing of the Russian military.
It is an
appalling situation, which European leaders have too often dealt with by wishing
it away. It is, then, to be welcomed that François Hollande and Angela Merkel on
Thursday headed for Kiev, where the US secretary of state, John Kerry, had
already arrived, to invest political capital in a new peace initiative. It must,
of course, be hoped that subsequent talks in Moscow will bear fruit – hoped, but
not assumed. There have been several seemingly promising diplomatic openings
previously, most recently the Minsk accord. That multi-point plan to end the war
was solemnly signed by all sides last September, but has since been
systematically violated by all sides too – and the conflict has intensified.
Some will
argue that the only reason why it may be possible to engage with the Russian
president, Vladimir Putin, at this juncture is because of the recent noises
coming out of Washington about delivering weaponry to Ukraine. Diplomacy always
need to be backed by something, and on the face of it, supplying munitions might
seem like the obvious threat to use. All else has failed to stop Mr Putin and
his allies on the ground, so it may take guns and anti-tank missiles to do so.
In 1995, western military support to Slobodan Milošević’s adversaries in Bosnia
helped force the Serbian dictator into peace talks.
This
argument for standing ready to arm Ukraine has one merit, but also several
flaws. The one positive is that it puts some urgency behind the need to put a
stop to Mr Putin’s adventures. The existing mix of sanctions and on-off
diplomacy has become demonstrably ineffective. Letting the separatists capture
more territory could render the Ukrainian state unviable, a disaster for Europe.
Mr Putin’s power games need disrupting now, since there is no telling where he
will turn next. Moldova? Or the Baltic states, where the worth of Nato’s
security guarantees could be put to a dangerous test?
But there
are also grave dangers of adding more weapons to a war, the danger of pouring
petrol on to a fire. In a corrupt environment, replete with militias, there can
be no guarantees that the kit will not fall into the wrong hands. And how do you
control escalation? The Putin regime could easily up the ante, confident that it
could call the west’s bluff well before tensions reached the terrifying logical
extreme of direct nuclear conflict. Arms supplied by the US, especially, would
be fodder for Mr Putin’s propaganda about a war against “Nato’s foreign legion”.
If the crisis requires stronger action, then this should come from Europe first.
After all, this is a war on European soil. Its consequences go well beyond
Ukraine, undermining the European project itself. Mr Putin seeks to disrupt the
international and economic norms that the EU upholds – norms that are anathema
to a chauvinistic Russian regime.
Europe does
have leverage, if it chooses to use it. Russia may be a geopolitical giant but
its GDP is no bigger than Italy’s. It is dependent on Europe’s financial
structures. Yet next to the plunging oil price, the EU sanctions thus far have
had a virtually symbolic impact. Cutting Russian banks and companies from the
Belgium-based Swift international transaction system would, by contrast, impose
a serious jolt. It could be done quickly, but then also rolled rapidly back. It
has worked before, against Iran, which entered nuclear negotiations soon after
being banned from Swift in 2012. Many businesses would balk at the costs. But
these would surely be easier to bear than the enduring damage done by a widening
war on the European continent.
Mr Putin
regards the EU as a strategic midget. He will respect it only when Russia’s
predatory oligarchy is confronted with some red lines. When Mrs Merkel and Mr
Hollande head for Moscow, they should put Swift on the table.