Perilous roulette

As the saying goes, when hunting the hare be ready for the lion too. Somehow Europeans seem to have ignored it when meddling in the neighbourhood of the Siberian bear. As it turns out even a docile bear could be far more dangerous when injured. Russia’s reaction to Nato’s poking around in its backyard has been decisive. No wonder the Ukrainian situation is going from bad to worse. The sparring over eastern Ukraine — where the towns of Donetsk and Luhansk have been bearing the brunt of the conflict ever since Russian tanks rolled into Crimea — has acquired the edge of a Russian roulette. Every time a Russian aid convoy rumbles across the international border, a shiver spreads across western capitals. The situation has been steadily deteriorating as the rebels have dug in. Moscow has sent in some 100 convoys ignoring the West’s fears that at least some carry arms for the rebels. Moscow has been deaf to Kyiv’s strident cries of foul play.

In the circumstances it is no wonder that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s latest meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin after a gap of one month yielded little. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that Russia’s actions threaten “the peaceful international order and break international law” marks a hardening of stand. She has called for unity within the European Union to confront Moscow. Pointing to the possibility of a long-drawn crisis, she said in a speech to the lower house of German parliament in Berlin, “We need patience and staying power to overcome the crisis.” Her threat that more sanctions against Moscow are “unavoidable” as the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine has failed to hold reflects a hardening western position. Merkel has been the main point person for contact with Putin and her statements could only serve to detract from the peace efforts.

US-inspired sanctions against Russian oligarchs and political heavyweights seem to have had little effect on influencing the course of the crisis so far. In fact Moscow has decidedly taken a dim view of the sanctions regime suggesting that it targets Putin as an individual. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said western actions have not helped reduce the tensions, but only worsened them. “Facts have been shown over and over that the unilateral sanctions imposed against us are illegitimate, undermine the stability of the global economy and have nothing in common with the tasks to de-escalate the Ukrainian crisis,” he said. European Union’s claim that it slapped the sanctions calculated to restrict Russia’s defence, energy and banking sectors do not change the situation on the ground. The feeling that Nato has bitten off more than it can possibly chew seems to be gaining ground. Merkel’s view that Nato is not at the moment discussing Ukraine’s entry echoes that feeling. A day after Poroshenko said that Ukraine would decide on its Nato entry in a future referendum, German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer advised Kyiv to focus on economic reform. Europe is heavily dependent on Moscow for its energy needs and cannot push it around much, especially at the threshold of a harsh winter. Therefore, all talks about additional sanctions would be more bluster than bite.