Kremlin silent as rebels retreat
Facing the threat of biting Western sanctions that could further shake Russia’s teetering economy, President Vladimir Putin has watched a string of rebel defeats without taking any action — drawing accusations from separatist sympathizers at home that he is betraying their cause.
Having initially vilified the government in Kyiv as a “facist” junta pursuing ethnic cleansing in eastern Ukraine, Russian state television has dampened its rhetoric in recent weeks.
And analysts say overt Russian involvement in the conflict threatening to tear apart the former Soviet state would simply be too costly for the Kremlin.
“There are rumors of a group of ‘war hawks’ who are pressuring Putin,” said independent political analyst Maria Lipman.
“But military intervention may lead to serious, dramatic costs,” such as deeper economic sanctions imposed by the West and the risk of becoming embroiled in an unpredictable war, she added.
Russia “is not seeking to help people who fight there, instead opting to leave them to their own devices,” Lipman said.
The Russian parliament last month revoked a resolution allowing Putin to send troops into Ukraine — a move Moscow said was designed to help the faltering peace process — depriving him of the legal means to intervene, added Volodymyr Gorbach, an analyst with the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Kyiv.
And as Kyiv’s anti-insurgency campaign gathers pace in Donetsk and Lugansk — the two industrial regions where separatists proclaimed independence in May — the risk of Russian intervention is diminished, Gorbach said.
“That threat existed before, it was in the initial phase of the current crisis,” he said.
“Nothing indicates that he will change his tactic” from implicit support of the insurgency to an open invasion, he added.
Putin Betrayal?
And there is a sense among pro-Russian separatists that they have been abandoned by Putin — who had pledged he would do all he could to protect Russian speakers everywhere.
During a popular talk show hosted by outspoken pro-Kremlin personality Vladimir Solovyov on Sunday, separatist Ukrainian politicians Denis Pushilin and Oleg Tsarev faced Russian foreign ministry official Konstantin Dolgov, demanding to know why Russia would not send in troops to support them.