47 - A Widening Conflagration: the War Matures and Intensifies
“The possibility of a broad conflagration in Europe has seldom, if ever, appeared more plausible.” So wrote Roger Cohen in the New York Times Sunday. The World War III that I worried about in the very first of the editions of this Newsletter, back on March 6, may already be in our midst. And nothing Putin declared yesterday, on “Victory” day in Moscow, suggests that he will lead Russia out of, rather than deeper down into the very entrails of an all-out battle for what he still regards as his personal and Russian just rewards. He still wants amoral might, his “might,” to conquer right and justice.
The Group of 7 (the leaders of the free world) that met remotely on Saturday said it would “spare no effort to hold…Putin” and his accomplices “accountable for their actions in accordance with international law.” Putin cannot have appreciated being reminded of his illegal actions. The war crime of “aggression” is clearly one on which he could (theoretically) some day be charged. (See columns ) Ethnic cleansing and genocide would be more legally shakier grounds on which to try him – if ever there is a Nuremberg-like bar before which Putin might be brought.
Even more telling, the Group of 7 made very clear that its members (the U. S., Canada, and European nations would continue to supply Ukraine with arms and financial support, stepping up supplies both immediately and over the medium-term. They also pledged to stop purchasing Russian gas and oil (albeit over time) and to interfere with the “key services” on which Russia and Putin’s war effort depends. Sanctions are to be expanded by each member of the group and by most of Europe. President Biden announced fresh constraints over the weekend on Russian military officials.
These actions mean that the North America and Europe are really at war with Putin even if together the nations allied with Ukraine technically can say with straight faces that they are only “helping” Ukraine defend itself. Furthermore, were it not for Putin’s long finger on nuclear controls, the broad coalition of like-minded nations would be tempted to assist Ukraine even more thoroughly than they now do. Taking over the air, as in Iraqi Kurdistan, would stem Russia’s advance. Attacking the missile launching sites in Russia and in the Black Sea that harass Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and much more would then be plausible. Instead, the Western coalition of the European 26 (bar Hungary), Britain, Canada, and the U. S. is seeking to protect the freedom of the world’s peoples and human rights writ large with cannons muffled and military strategies curtailed.
Despite Ukraine’s formidable and unexpectedly effective defense of the Kyiv region and this weekend’s retaking of Russian conquered territory and towns near Kharkiv, the war is in no way winding down. President Volodymyr Zelensky was right to ask his citizens not to drift into complacency. Missiles will continue to kill, structures will be flattened, lives will be lost – especially if Ukrainians cease being vigilant and hyper-alert to danger. Putin refused to use his Victory Day celebration to declare “victory” and pull his troops back. Even if he seems to have deferred a struggle for Kyiv for now, and seems to be concentrating his deadly forces on the land corridor between Mariupol and Odesa, his ego cannot accept a defeat. He has punishing armaments and no real need to consider public opinion at home. Moreover his Victory Day speech was a fusillade of antagonism to the West, especially the U.S. So we are neither near the end nor even in a middle of a war. The possibility of a struggle that continues throughout the rest of the year cannot now be denied.
These dark fears are reinforced by the opinions of CIA director William J. Burns, who spoke to a university audience in Washington on Saturday. He concluded gloomily
that Putin is “in a frame of mind that thinks he cannot afford to lose.” Burns was U. S. ambassador to Moscow when Putin replaced Boris Yeltsin as Russian president at the beginning of this century, and has studied Putin at first hand. Burns said on Saturday that Putin believes that his best alternative now was “doubling down.” Burns expects Putin to pound away at Ukrainian defenders in the east of that country, and to continue to bomb and shell them, and civilians, until eastern and southern Ukraine are reduced to rubble, and in secure Russian hands. The “current phase of the war was at least as dangerous as Russia’s initial attempt to attack [Kyiv]…and topple the [legitimate] Ukrainian government.”
Putin has humiliation to avoid and President Biden and other adversaries to overcome. Unless under-motivated Russian troops or their cynical officers revolt, or angry mobs descend on Moscow (both of which are unlikely, given Putin’s disinformation machine), the West will have to continue to squeeze the Russian economy with sanctions (and individuals, too), seize more and more yachts and bank accounts, and deny all manner of Russians any legitimate role in world affairs. It will have to suffer higher prices at the petrol and gas pumps, escalating costs in Europe for natural gas, and inflation. A large part of the world will pay elevated prices for food, especially the Russian and Ukrainian wheat, barley, and sunflower oil that is no longer being exported and cannot be planted easily in Ukraine’s spring. North Africans and some sub-Saharan Africans will grow hungry. Brazil may be unable to plant its usual amounts of soybeans, maize, and sugar because of inflated prices of fertilizer from Russia and Belarus.
Readers of this column know that such sacrifices are necessary to defeat Putin, and to overcome his and Russia’s massive assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of the entire world. Let us hope that others accept the life style hardships and the income reductions that – given a long war – supporting Ukraine will mean. We, collectively, as defenders of humanity, have no other effective choice.