Europeans and Americans on Ukraine

In relation to the current conflict over the build-up of Russian troops on Russia's and Belarus' borders with Ukraine, a clear discrepancy is emerging in Europeans' and Americans' assessment of this attitude, which at first seems both threatening and unfriendly to put it mildly. But there is no need to worry because this happens in the best families, although it is necessary to be vigilant to prevent others from taking advantage of it. 

The fact is that while the Americans see in the Russian deployment clear signs of an invasion of all or part of Ukrainian territory, and even consider that it could take place "imminently" as Joe Biden said before backing down under pressure from President Zelenski, who considered this to be a bit alarmist and to create unease and disquiet among the population, Europeans seem to think that the Russians are bluffing because they are well aware of the enormous cost that an invasion would have in terms of lives, image and economy, and that the deployment of troops is more of a "posture" that will allow them to achieve their goal of a de facto neutralisation of Ukraine, since nobody is going to allow it in law. And to achieve this Russia seems ready to combine pressure with disinformation and cyber attacks whose origin is always difficult to trace. It will also seek to widen the differences that exist between us. 

The Soviets in the penultimate decade of the twentieth century were shattered in Afghanistan, as the Americans are now, and after seeing what happened in Iraq they know that victory is possible, but occupying and administering a country is much more complicated if the population does not cooperate. And here it does not seem that the Ukrainians - or at least many of them - would be uncooperative. The cost would be excessive and Putin is well aware that a full-scale invasion would unite Europeans and Americans as one and at the same time breathe new life into NATO, even more than it has already done with the current threatening deployment of its troops - it is worth remembering that only a few months ago Emmanuel Macron considered it "brain-dead". And that is of no interest to him. By contrast, "minor" operations in the self-styled secessionist "republics" of Donetsk and Lugansk or around Crimea would make it easier for differences to emerge between us on the response to be given. Divergences that would not only be between the two sides of the Atlantic but also between the Europeans themselves, who are now united by the magnitude of the challenge but who would be very clumsy to ignore the fact that we do not see the problem in the same way, for while Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are in favour of a very firm response because the proximity of the Russian bear understandably frightens them, other more distant countries tend to see things from a more philosophical perspective. This goes as far as Hungary, whose fractious President Orbán has recently travelled to Moscow to tell Putin that he understands his security concerns. Hungary is an extreme case in Europe because it receives 100 per cent of its gas from Russia, though that is no excuse. There is already a fleet of ships bringing liquefied gas from the US to Europe to provide for a worst-case scenario. Without going as far as that, differences also exist within governments such as the German government and prevent them from taking a clear stance on Russia's threatening attitude. As long as we Europeans are unable to speak with one voice our influence in the world will remain small. The proof is that Macron, Johnson and Scholz will go to Moscow these days, but what really matters is what Putin and Biden agree or disagree on. 

Putin is no fool and he knows all that. His problem is that he is an authoritarian leader and authoritarian leaders tend to surround themselves with people who do not tell them the truth but what they think the boss likes to hear, and that is another of the great advantages of democracies. Just remember what happened to Saddam Hussein. Documentation obtained after his death shows that he did not believe that the Americans were going to invade Iraq and that if they did his army would be able to resist the attack. His advisers were afraid to tell him the truth and told him what they knew he wanted to hear with a catastrophic end result for his country and for himself, who ended up hanging from a noose. In the Russian case, Putin has surrounded himself with people who come mostly from the world of the intelligence services, from the old KGB and the current FSB, in a Kremlin where promotions are more for "hard-won loyalties" than for merit. And it is scary to think that they might be telling the boss not what they think but what they know he would like to hear, such as that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people" (Putin's own quote) and that perhaps that is why the Russians would be greeted as liberators and with bouquets of flowers? On the other hand, it is clear that Putin, after the mess he has made, cannot return the soldiers to their barracks and show up in Moscow empty-handed, because that is not the way of the alpha males whose image he so carefully cultivates. 

For the moment Putin has gone to Beijing to cover his back by hugging Xi Jinping, who is another who also claims to understand his security demands, and it seems unlikely that he will undertake anything serious before the Winter Games in China are over. This gives diplomacy a little more time because, although the US response to Moscow's demands, which has been leaked to the press, does not, according to the Kremlin, satisfy its demands, it nevertheless opens up the possibility of discussing troops and missiles in Europe, as well as what the Russians mean when they talk about the "indivisibility" of security. An old trick of diplomacy is that when an issue is intractable it should be surrounded by others on which negotiation is possible. 

In my view Putin will not get a formal commitment that Ukraine (or Sweden or Finland) will not join NATO because that is something no one can give him, but he can, without resorting to force or turning back the clock to 1997 as he would wish, get de facto rather than de jure acceptance of designing a new security scheme for our continent that somehow takes into account some of the Kremlin's security apprehensions. It just depends on whether it is able to play its cards skilfully and not brute force. 

And if that is achieved, Europe's immediate interest should be to draw Russia in and separate it from China, though that would require it to agree to play by shared rules with us. 

Jorge Dezcallar de Mazarredo is Ambassador of Spain