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Wall Street Journal: Russian regular army invades Ukraine
8/28/2014 1:41:07 AM
The Wall Street Journal reported on the beginning of an open attack on Ukraine by Russian hordes:
- So far in this crisis the Russian strongman has practiced a form of ambiguous aggression—the insignia-less "little green men" in Crimea; the quasi-covert military aid to the separatists in eastern Ukraine—that provided the Kremlin with at least a fig leaf of deniability. What's happening now looks like an outright invasion.
Besides a direct involvement of the Russian army in Ukraine, a convoy of trucks carrying "humanitarian aid" crossed the border without permission from Kiev and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Exactly what Putin hopes to achieve remains to be seen. At a minimum, the convoy serves the Kremlin's domestic propaganda purposes by offering visual evidence that Mother Russia will come to the aid of fellow Russians stranded in the country's "near abroad" and under dire threat from allegedly nefarious forces.
US Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO's Supreme Commander, has noted that Russia has "previously sent 'humanitarian' and 'peacekeeping' efforts to Georgia, Moldova and Crimea, and we have seen how they proved to be deceptions that freeze conflicts rather than resolve them".
The Kremlin formula is to insert the convoy, demand a ceasefire, then insist that Kiev honor the ceasefire, in turn allowing the rebel enclaves to become self-governing territories.
But the convoy also creates the possibility of an incident—accidental or premeditated—that can spark a wider war. Putin has a history of using such incidents to start wars against his enemies.
The WSJ noted last week what some of that support might be: body armor, night-vision goggles, small UAVs, antitank weapons, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and radio jammers.
This equipment can be rapidly loaded on C-17 cargo planes and flown directly to Kiev.
Repairing the damage Obama caused relations with Poland and the Czech Republic by reversing his 2009 decision to abandon anti-ballistic missile systems in both countries should be started. That could be done fairly quickly by basing existing sea-based ABM capabilities on dry land. The US could also quiet fears about a Russian invasion of the Baltic states by permanently deploying a regiment of US Marines in the three NATO countries.
Eastern Ukraine is now the place where Western resolve is being acutely tested against the usual temptations of timidity and indifference.
This is an old story, and Obama is fond of saying that this kind of aggression has no place "in the 21st century." But Russia's revanchism is a reminder that human nature remains the same no matter what century we're living in. Dictators do not do off-ramps. Their aggression doesn't stop until it is checked.
The events in Ukraine are not receiving the response they deserve. What is happening? Russia has completely ignored the Budapest Memorandums on Security Assurances of 1994 in which, as a signatory, it agreed not to violate any Ukrainian territory. Russia has taken Crimea and is actively stirring trouble in the eastern part of that country, a blatant violation of solemn vows.
Both the Russian and American negotiators understood that this Memorandum was critical to Ukraine's decision to give up its almost 2,000 nuclear weapons.
If Russia had not agreed to the Budapest Memorandum, it is likely that Ukraine would not have surrendered its nuclear weapons.
It is necessary to provide military assistance to Kiev, to place American troops in the Baltic States and impose tougherer sanctions against Russia. In the world, where armed forces of any country violate the territorial integrity of its neighbors, there is little order.
Experts do not feel very optimistic. For example, Robert D. Kaplan, the chief geopolitical analyst for the CIA-linked analytical center Stratfor, believes that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is unlikely. While Putin's approval rating among Russians is sky-high, recent polling shows the Russian people aren't wild about an out-and-out invasion of Ukraine. "He may be a dictator, Kaplan notes - . but dictators care about public opinion as much as democrats".
Nevertheless, Moscow will continue to put pressure on Ukraine's economy, predicts the analyst. According to Kaplan, Russian will try everything to weaken the government in Kiev.
Heather Conley, senior vice president of Europe and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is sure that Putin is buying time so that he can continue slipping arms and aid to help separatists recover from their recent losses.
"His best option is to have a permanent frozen conflict", said Conley to CNN correspondent.
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
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