The Plea For Peace, Mr. Putin

On the 26th of December 1991, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed, the Iron Curtain finally shred; the long-lasting struggle for democracy came to an end and in purely Wilsonian style one might have said that they had “made the world safe for democracy”. But after two decades of relative peace, the political relations between the West and Russia started cooling again and there have been plenty of voices from all around the world wondering if we are a step away from the outbreak of the next Cold War. In the ’90s such a possibility was considered once in a blue moon, but recently it has become an every-day nightmare. Various economic sanctions have been imposed on Russia by both the European Union and the United States but the Kremlin seems to be immune to all those penalties.

The fact that the Putin administration has been supporting the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and providing them with various weapons, was made public a long time ago, but what really pushed the Western politicians to act was the crash of Malaysia Airlines MH17 Flight in eastern Ukraine caused by Russian-supplied weapons. “Those directly and indirectly responsible for bringing down this plane must be held accountable and brought to justice,” proclaimed Catherine Ashton, the EU’s High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security. The EU leaders realised that if they stayed divided and weak, the situation might become difficult to handle; Brussels which until that point reminded more of biblical Sodom and Gomorrah rather than of the heart of the United States of Europe, started speaking with one voice. Lithuanian Foreign Minister – Linas Linkevicius appealed to the EU to “wake up”, the new British Foreign Secretary – Philip Hammond proclaimed that the EU would “go further with [their] actions as a consequence” of the course of recent events. Those two ministers, strongly supported by politicians from Austria, Sweden and Latvia started calling for the arms embargo to be imposed on Russia. David Cameron and other European leaders would agree on enforcing “strong” economic sanctions as soon as possible. Frans Timmermans (Dutch Foreign Minister), shocked by the death of 193 Dutch citizens, in his emotional speech before the UN Security Council pointed out that:

Image courtesy of Firdaus Omar © 2008. Some rights reserved.

In the light of recent events, the word “security” took on a new meaning. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has reported that the Russians have been rebuilding their army which has grown from 1,000 people in mid-June to 10,000 -12,000; the troops have been positioned on the eastern borders of Ukraine. Despite the catastrophic plane crush, Moscow has continued to sell weapons to the Ukrainian rebels and in the years up to 2020, Putin’s plan is to buy military equipment worth $700 billion. Furthermore, the US government announced that the Kremlin had violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty from 1987 by having been testing the nuclear cruise missiles since 2008. One of the US officials – Josh Earnest, appealed to Russia to “return to compliance with its obligations under the treaty and to eliminate any prohibited items in a verifiable matter”. Also President Obama decided to write a letter on that matter to president Putin.

Although in the period from 2008-2012, the EU countries issued export licenses worth €925m for Russia which represents less than a per cent of the total number of licences issued at that time; it is still alarming and worrying that France might not be too eager to change their current approach towards Russia. In 2008, in the aftermath of the war between Russia and Georgia, Paris and Moscow signed the French Mistral deal in accordance with which, the first Mistral is supposed to be delivered this year. It is very difficult to predict which actions the shaky Hollande administration is going to take, but if the government from Bercy does decide to complete the arms deal, it will only prove that the imposed sanctions do not mean anything to the biggest players on the European political stage.

It is also difficult to predict how the political crisis will influence the European economy, for example: BP has gotten around a 20% stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft and they have already announced that “any future erosion of our relationship with Rosneft, or the impact of further economic sanctions, could adversely impact our business and strategic objectives in Russia, the level of our income, production and reserves, our investment in Rosneft and our reputation.“

Although the Berlin Wall was torn down almost 25 years ago, today a new, invisible wall is being built between the West and Russia. This wall’s bricks are made of stubbornness, blindness and the lust for power. And as former US President Ronald Reagan famously said in 1987: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down the wall”, the voice of wisdom seems to be yelling now: “Mr. Putin, don’t let the new wall be built!”

We are appealing for peace!