MOSCOW (AP) — For Russian President Vladimir Putin, there are few options left in the Ukraine crisis and they all look bad.
He is caught between a determined West demanding
that he disavow the pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine and increasingly
assertive nationalists at home urging him to champion the mutiny and
send in the Russian army.
The
Malaysian plane disaster this week triggered another round of U.S. and
EU sanctions, which for the first time targeted entire sectors of the
Russian economy, severely limiting Putin's room for maneuver. He may be
eager to sever ties with the rebels, but he would need to find a way to
do so that would allow him to save face — an exceedingly hard task amid
growing Western pressure.
Bowing to Western demands would
potentially spell political suicide for the Russian leader, who has
built his popularity on standing up to the West. Under pressure, he may
choose instead to escalate the crisis and risk an all-out confrontation.
Putin didn't plan for it to happen this way.
Last
fall, he used a combination of pressure and subsidies to prevent
Ukraine from signing an association agreement with the EU and lure it
into a Moscow-led alliance. When mass protests chased the
Russian-leaning Ukrainian president from power in February, Putin saw it
as a Western plot against Russia and quickly moved to annex Ukraine's
Black Sea peninsula of Crimea to head off what he said was the imminent
threat of Ukraine joining NATO.
Putin then sought to maintain
pressure on the West by fomenting a pro-Russian insurgency that flared
up in Ukraine's mostly Russian-speaking industrial east in April,
apparently hoping that a slow-burning conflict would help persuade the
West to strike a compromise that would allow Russia to keep Ukraine in
its orbit.
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Children walk past a piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines jet downed over Ukraine, in Petrop …
That strategy has failed. The West, especially Europe, long
showed unwillingness to take a strong punitive stand against Putin. But
the downing of the Malaysian passenger plane was the unforeseen event
that overturned the dynamic, and compelled the West to act.
It
appears that the Russian leader now is desperately looking for a way
out from the crisis in hopes of containing the gravest threat to his
rule to date. Here are some possible scenarios that may play out:
RUSSIA STRIKES COMPROMISE
From
the start, Putin wanted to a deal with a West that would allow Russia
to maintain its leverage over Ukraine, and he has steadily tempered his
ambitions.
At the onset of the
turmoil, Putin hoped that Ukraine would join a Russia-dominated
economic alliance. When such hopes evaporated with the ouster of
President Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow began pushing for a "federalization"
of Ukraine that would give broad powers to its provinces and allow them
to deal directly with Moscow. Rebels later backed those demands by
conducting independence referendums that both Ukraine and the West
declared a sham.
The Kremlin then softened its rhetoric and
started calling vaguely for a "dialogue" between the central government
and the regions that would give the provinces a bigger say over local
issues.
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Ukrainian government army's soldiers stand guard next to the cars of Convoy of the OSCE mission …
Now with his hand weakened by the plane disaster, Putin may be
eager to accept any vague deal that would allow Moscow to maintain just a
symbolic degree of influence. Such a deal, however, would have to
involve concessions by both parties, something that is hard to achieve
amid continuing fighting and growing distrust.
The
West has demanded that the Kremlin disown the rebellion in eastern
Ukraine. While Putin may despise the ragtag band of retired Russian
officers and Moscow political consultants that have helped foment the
mutiny, it would be hard for him to distance himself from them without
denting his support base.
The
Malaysian plane disaster, however, could offer a face-saving way of
publicly condemning the rebel leadership. If an international
investigation confirms that the missile that downed the plane on July 17
was launched by the rebels, Putin may say that Russia can't support
those who were responsible for the tragic death of nearly 300 innocent
people. Such a statement could pave the way for talks.
MORE SANCTIONS PROVOKE TOUGH RESPONSE
Putin
possibly fears that any concessions would only lead to more Western
pressure and may choose to remain defiant. If he keeps refusing to
distance himself from the rebels, the West will remain reluctant to
engage in any talks. Fighting in the east, which already involves heavy
artillery and rockets pummeling residential areas, will raise the
pressure on Putin to intervene militarily.
Putin is already facing
scathing criticism in Russian nationalist publications and online
forums for betraying Russian speakers in Ukraine by failing to send in
the army.
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A Malaysian air crash investigator takes pictures of wreckage at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines …
At some point, fearing that the damage to his popularity could
become irreparable, Putin may send more weapons to the rebels. More
Western sanctions will not stop his hand, but rather may push him into a
situation where any compromise would look like kowtowing to the West.
Pressed
against the wall, Putin may even decide to send troops into Ukraine.
They would likely crush the weak and disorganized Ukrainian military
within days. The West would be unlikely to intervene militarily, but it
would freeze virtually all ties with Moscow, sending the Russian economy
into a tailspin. Living standards will plummet quickly, possibly
spawning social unrest.
GROWING TURMOIL, UNPREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCES
Some
in the West may hope that the sanctions will encourage members of the
Russian elites as well as the broad public to demand a change of course.
However,
the tightly controlled Russian political system leaves little room for
dissent. Billionaire tycoons, some of whom have close personal links to
Putin, stand to lose a lot from Western sanctions and would like Putin
to soften his policy. But hopes that they may somehow persuade the
president to pull out of confrontation seem futile, as the oligarchs are
too scared to form any kind of united group, and official loyalties are
closely controlled by Putin's fellow KGB veterans who dominate the
officialdom.
Many in Washington expected Putin's businessmen
friends who were hit by U.S. sanctions in March to push him toward
de-escalation. The opposite has happened. Instead of encouraging a
pro-Western opposition, more sanctions will likely further strengthen
the Kremlin hawks, who may push Putin toward an even more
confrontational and isolationist course.
In a sense, the Russian leader has become hostage to his own propaganda that has cast the West as an enemy of Russia.
Putin's
approval ratings so far have remained high, but if the economy starts
collapsing under the brunt of Western sanctions his popularity would
dwindle quickly. It doesn't mean, though, that pro-Western democratic
forces would have any chance to expand their presence on Russia's
political scene.
Amid the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions,
the weak and disorganized Russian liberals have become increasingly
marginalized, while extreme nationalist forces have strengthened
considerably.
Economic
meltdown would further allow nationalist groups to expand their sway,
and Russian volunteers now fighting in eastern Ukraine may become an
explosive element in a changing political equation.
The
prospect of potential unrest could re-ignite fears that accompanied the
1991 Soviet collapse. Thousands of nuclear warheads, smoldering
conflicts between a myriad of ethnic groups, separatist movements and
crumbling industrial infrastructure that could lead to technological
disasters make any instability in Russia deadly dangerous for the rest
of the world.
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Isachenkov has covered Russia and other ex-Soviet nations for the AP since 1992.
