The Putin Problem

Originally published in The UCC Express March 21 2014

“We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos,” said Vladimir Putin in his New York Times op-ed last September, amid a plea for caution to the United States to refrain from using military force in Syria. “The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.” If one were to apply Putin’s (or, more likely, his ghostwriter’s) logic to the Ukraine situation today, the words don’t seem to bear much weight. With Russia seizing an opportunity to militarily occupy the autonomous region of Crimea in the south, it is obvious that international law means very little when the national interest of a country is at stake.

Since Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin ally, was deposed last month after several weeks of protests by citizens, the political situation in Ukraine has changed dramatically. A western-leaning interim government has been installed and Russia has moved in to Crimea. Western countries have declared such a move by Russia as illegal, while the Kremlin says it reserves the right to protect ethnic Russians in the southern region, who make up the vast majority of the population (58%). A referendum is due on March 16th to decide whether or not Crimea should secede from Ukraine and join Russia. It is likely to pass, although if it does, it won’t be recognised by Western nations and is likely to create further tensions. So why is this relatively small peninsula in the south of Ukraine so contentious? The answer is inherently complex.

Russia’s claim to Crimea dates back centuries. It was under Russian control until 1954 when it was gifted to the Ukraine by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in a symbolic gesture. This dispensation did not foresee the break-up of the Soviet Union thirty-seven years later, in 1991. Since Ukraine became an independent state, tensions have risen periodically over the possession of Crimea, particularly because Russia maintains its Black Sea navy fleet in the south-west city of Sevastopol. Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia all agreed to provide security assurances to Ukraine (and by extension Crimea), including respecting the fledgling nation’s independence, and not using force or threatening to use force there. Given that Russia has recently invaded Crimea, western powers believe that Putin has broken this agreement.

In legal terms, it does sound quite simple. Russia broke the Budapest agreement, and therefore broke international law. However, international law has no neutral enforcer and oftentimes is there to be flouted. No international crisis is the sum of its legal breaches, as history, culture and political maneuvering all heavily influence the course it takes. The historical backdrop to the current Crimean crisis is undoubtedly the Cold War. In broad terms, the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving Russia in the shadow of the increasingly powerful United States and European Union. Ukraine, a former member of the Soviet Union, is representative of a bygone Russian era, and for Russia to lose its influence over it to Europe would be perceived domestically as a catastrophic show of weakness for Putin. This is why, after Ukraine saw a pro-Europe government installed after months of protests, Putin saw the need to stake his claim in Ukraine, by way occupying Crimea. In essence, regaining control of Crimea is a highly romanticised idea in Russian political discourse, as it represents the power and influence the country once held. If Russia can bring Crimea back under its sphere of influence and legitimise such a move without bloodshed, it’ll portray Russia as a force to be reckoned with on the international stage, no longer seen as the developing country that was ravaged by poverty and social discontent in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Indeed, Putin’s popularity in Russia has soared after his move into Crimea. The west deem his actions as abhorrent, but domestically he has been receiving praise as he defends Russia’s interests and its large ethnic population in the region.

While maintaining influence over Ukraine and Crimea is important to Russia, perhaps more tangible consequences of the East versus West tug of war are the economic issues, specifically in terms of Europe’s oil supply. Russia has huge oil reserves, and it supplies around 30% of Europe’s oil in total. It does this through a vast network of pipelines that flow directly through Ukraine. As Europe and the United States seek to lay sanctions on Russia for its actions in Crimea, all are acutely aware that Russia holds an incredibly powerful trump card in the way of oil. Although to cut this supply would cripple Russia as well. Indeed, much of the reason why the crisis in Ukraine took place relates to oil. The $15 billion economic aid package that was offered to President Yanukovych by Russia last year (the one that kicked off the original protests) partly came after Ukraine was unable to sustain a Russian oil price hike imposed on Ukraine in 2005. Many see Ukraine’s dependence on Russia’s oil as a method by Vladimir Putin to keep his stranglehold on the former Soviet subjugate.

As the west and east battle for influence over the future of Ukraine and Crimea, the outcome, regardless of the referendum result, remains uncertain. With Crimea falling into the hands of Vladimir Putin with relative ease, he is very aware that there is little that Europe and the United States can do to stop him. Sanctions are forthcoming, and the US has threatened to pull out of a G8 summit to be held in Russia, but these are largely inconsequential and of little worry to Putin. Western leaders now fear Putin may go further and attempt to annex Ukraine entirely, pulling the east of the nation back under Russian influence. How Europe and the United States will respond to Russia’s new show of strength in the long term will be very important to watch.