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Aug. 28, 2014 8:05 p.m. ET
Say this about Vladimir Putin. The Russian strongman has taken the measure of German ChancellorAngela Merkel and President Obama. He knows they dread a showdown over Ukraine, so he is ignoring their rhetorical protests and moving to carve out even more of Ukraine for Greater Russia.
That's the meaning of the Kremlin's decision this week to move Russian forces into the Ukrainian coastal town of Novoazovsk while shoring up Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. A NATO official said "well over" 1,000 Russian troops, backed by heavy armor, have joined the separatists in fighting Ukraine's military.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin Zuma Press
The Kiev government is calling this an "invasion," while NATO clings to "incursion," but that's a distinction without a difference. Russia invaded Ukraine in February by grabbing Crimea. It has since escalated its military intervention in multiple ways, including with special forces and by firing artillery at Ukrainian positions from both Russian territory and inside Ukraine. If Spanish-speaking men in army garb grabbed El Paso and Mexican artillery fired at the Texas National Guard, Americans would call it an invasion.
The strategy behind Mr. Putin's move into Ukraine's southern coast is to open a land bridge between Russia and Crimea. The goal is to reduce Crimea's isolation so Russian military garrisons can be reinforced by land instead of by air, and the peninsula's economy can be knit more closely to Russia's.
The escalation also opens up another front for the Ukrainian military as it tries to regain control over the east. Ukraine's military has been making progress against the separatist forces occupying Donetsk and Luhansk, and Mr. Putin may figure he had to act now to prevent the rebels from being overrun. Kiev's forces will now have to fight on a third front against Russian soldiers and armor.
The timing is notable, but not surprising, on the heels of the much-ballyhooed Tuesday meeting between Mr. Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Western Europeans, in their desire to have this crisis go away, had hoped the meeting would yield progress toward a negotiating solution.
But Mr. Poroshenko can't concede territory to Russia without betraying his country, and Mr. Putin can't be seen inside Russia to have abandoned his separatist proxies in Ukraine. When Mr. Poroshenko wouldn't yield, Mr. Putin decided to improve his leverage by creating more military facts on the ground.
The Russian advance is a particular humiliation to Mrs. Merkel, who more or less invited Mr. Putin to escalate. Last weekend she visited Kiev with a public message that there had to be a negotiated solution and Europe had no plans for further sanctions against Russia. That was ample incentive for the Russian to refuse any compromise. His latest grab for territory follows the familiar Putin pattern of responding to every concession with a new provocation.
Mrs. Merkel is supposed to be a formidable statesman but she has been soft clay in Mr. Putin's hands. Every time she backs away from tough sanctions, the Russian advances. He knows Mrs. Merkel's government includes a Social Democratic foreign minister who is soft on Moscow's depredations.
He also knows that she and her fellow European leaders will go to great lengths to avoid imposing sanctions that might harm their own weak economies. Russia also has economic troubles, but Mr. Putin is an autocrat willing to gamble a weak hand for what he considers to be long-term strategic gain. The West Europeans won't take any risks for anything.
On Thursday Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Obama said they will discuss imposing more sanctions this weekend. But if they follow form in this crisis, they will stomp their feet, sanction a couple of more banks and oligarchs, and then beg Mr. Putin to "negotiate in good faith." This would be risible if the consequences for Ukraine, and for the future of Europe, weren't so grim.
Mr. Putin's escalation is also a slap at Mr. Obama, who has pleaded with the Russian that people don't act this way "in the 21st century." Oh, yes, they do. Mr. Obama's refusal to help Kiev with even small arms and antitank and antiaircraft weapons was also a signal to the Kremlin that the U.S. would prefer to look away. The U.S. President has subcontracted out this crisis to the Europeans, which means doing little or nothing.
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A serious response to this serious challenge to Europe's political order remains now what it was when we first suggested it six months ago. Arm the Ukrainians so they can defend themselves. Impose punitive sanctions on Russian energy and finance that will damage the economy and raise the domestic political costs for Mr. Putin. Deploy arms and soldiers to Poland and the Baltic states, and demonstrate the political will to rearm NATO.
Alas, Mr. Putin has concluded that the chances that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Merkel will do this also remain the same—zero.
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Aug. 26, 2014 7:15 p.m. ET
Israel and Palestine exchange bombs and rockets for weeks on end, with yet another cease fire announced on Tuesday. A civil war is under way in Iraq; and a Russian military convoy violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine. These events demand a strategic approach on the part of the United States in which we maintain an ability to defend our interests in many places at once.
In particular, we are concerned that the events in Ukraine are not receiving the response they deserve.
What is happening? Russia has completely ignored the Budapest Memorandums on Security Assurances of 1994 in which, as a signatory, it agreed not to violate any Ukrainian territory. Russia has taken Crimea and is actively stirring trouble in the eastern part of that country, a blatant violation of solemn vows. One of us, Mr. Perry, participated in the negotiations leading to the Budapest Memorandum, and can testify to the seriousness of that broken promise. He can also testify that both the Russian and American negotiators understood that this Memorandum was critical to Ukraine's decision to give up its almost 2,000 nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian soldiers stand guard at a checkpoint near Slaviansk in eastern Ukraine in July. Reuters
If Russia had not agreed to the Budapest Memorandum, it is likely that Ukraine would not have surrendered its nuclear weapons, with the danger of "loose nukes" that deeply concerned both the U.S. and Russia. Even today, a nuclear Ukraine could pose the danger of a serious regional dispute morphing into a nuclear exchange. So Russia got an important security benefit from the Budapest Memorandum, but now is unwilling to pay the price for that benefit, as it promised.
Besides its incursion into Crimea, Russia continues to be provocative militarily in eastern Ukraine by providing equipment, training, and sometimes, in a thinly disguised way, personnel. Last week the Russians sent a large convoy into Ukraine. This convoy was advertised as carrying relief equipment, which may well be true, but has not been verified by any international body. This week, Russia is sending in another convoy, again with the opposition of the Ukrainian government. By these actions, Russia violates Ukraine's territorial integrity and reneges on the Budapest Memorandum.
The situation demands attention and action. There is no need for American "boots on the ground," because Ukraine has sizable ground forces, but we—NATO, or the U.S. if NATO is reluctant to act—need to help them with training and equipment that can improve their military performance and allow them to defend their country. Ukraine is a founding member of NATO's Partnership for Peace, so NATO not only has some responsibility to act, but has actually trained together with Ukrainian military forces. The sanctions already applied have hurt Russia's economic interests but have not stopped Russia's actions. They need to be strengthened. By our actions we help Ukraine, but we also let Russia know that we will defend our interests and the interests of countries whose territorial integrity is being threatened.
We should reassure the Baltic States by deploying forces in those countries. A permanent deployment would contravene the NATO-Russia Founding Act, but a rotating force could be consistent with the Act while indicating to Russia how seriously we take their military actions.
We are not seeking a confrontation; we believe that a good relationship with Russia is profoundly in the interests of the U.S. and a peaceful world order. However, there is little order in a world in which the military force of one country violates the territorial integrity of its neighbor. We believe that an independent Ukraine with its territorial integrity intact can and should emerge.
With its increasing commitment to the rule of law, natural resources and resilient people, Ukraine can produce an economy with which the U.S. and other countries can trade and interact for a better future. Helping Ukraine become a viable rule-of-law state with a flourishing economy will be difficult but is essential. It would be the best rebuff to Russia, and, in the long run, the best stimulus for a similar development in Russia.
Mr. Perry was secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. Mr. Shultz was secretary of state in the Reagan administration. Both are senior fellows at the Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
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· · · ·
The new incursion into Ukrainian territory by Russian forces has led some veteran US foreign policy hands to call for a quick and highly visible Western airlift of military equipment to Kyiv. The aim: to prevent a Russian rout of Ukraine.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, former US secretary of state George Shultz and ex-defense secretary William Perry urged the US and NATO to deploy forces in the Baltics, and equipment in Ukraine.
The prospects a swift victory for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s forces grew dramatically on Aug. 26, when a column of Russian armor appeared over the border at Novoazovsk, sending the Ukrainian troops into a full, panicked retreat. Russian forces today occupied the town, and are reportedly advancing to the strategic port of Mariupol.
US and NATO leaders, in addition to journalists on the ground in Ukraine, describe it as a Russian invasion in all but name—the kind of operation Putin pulled off when his forces overran Crimea in March.
The pro-Moscow rebels forces include Russian volunteers, such as these chronicled by France 24. But Polish prime minister Donald Tusk says the evidence of Russian regulars and armor (paywall) is indisputable. Tusk told his parliament: “Nobody can seriously accept talk of ‘separatists’ in Ukraine anymore. The information is from NATO and confirmed by our intelligence, and is basically unambiguous.”
The action urged by Shultz and Perry, among others, is mainly in the realm of optics—no one is suggesting the deployment of Western troops, not in Ukraine anyway, and no one thinks that Ukrainian forces, even with Western equipment, can outmatch the overwhelmingly superior Russian forces. But the hope is that a show of Western support could deter Putin.
Andrew Kuchins of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the action by the West must come immediately. In an email exchange with Quartz, Kuchins says:
Obama and NATO allies will need to VERY RAPIDLY mobilize lethal military support for the Ukrainian forces. We need to have a few C-130s land in Kiev and some other things cross the Western border of Ukraine by air and by land. The moment of truth may be upon us very shortly. … Putin most know NOW that NATO will not sit back and watch Russia mop up Ukrainian military forces.
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MOSCOW — Supported by NATO satellite imagery showing Russian forces on the move in eastern Ukraine, its president accused Russia on Thursday of an invasion to aid the separatists, and his national security council ordered mandatory conscription to help counter what he called an “extremely difficult” threat.
The assertions by the president, Petro O. Poroshenko, came two days after he had met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in attempts to find a way to end the nearly six-month-old crisis roiling Ukraine. The conflict has escalated into the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War, and the developments on the ground in the rebellious east along the Russian border suggested it would worsen.
Mr. Poroshenko scrapped a trip to Turkey to deal with the crisis and called an emergency meeting of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council. He dismissed Kremlin claims that any Russian soldiers in Ukraine were volunteers who had sacrificed their vacations to help the heavily pro-Russian east suffering oppression from the Kiev central government.
“Columns of heavy artillery, huge loads of arms and regular Russian servicemen came to the territory of Ukraine from Russia through the uncontrolled border area,” Mr. Poroshenko said. Mercenaries, along with regular servicemen, were trying to overrun positions held by the Ukrainian military, he said, according to a statement on his official website.
“The situation is certainly extremely difficult and nobody is going to simplify it,” Mr. Poroshenko said.
Anticipating the possibility of direct combat between Ukrainian and Russian troops, the council later announced it had reimposed mandatory military service, suspended last year.
Mr. Poroshenko spoke as NATO released satellite images to corroborate accusations that Russian forces were actively involved in Ukraine fighting. NATO also said that more than 1,000 Russian soldiers had joined the separatists battling the Ukrainian military.
“Over the past two weeks we have noted a significant escalation in both the level and sophistication of Russia’s military interference in Ukraine,” Brig. Gen. Nico Tak of the Netherlands, a senior officer in NATO’s military command, said in a statement. One image, dated Aug. 21, shows a Russian military convoy with self-propelled artillery moving in the Krasnodon region inside Ukraine. Another, dated Aug. 23, shows Russian self-propelled artillery units in firing positions near Krasnodon.
General Tak said the Russian soldiers were backing the separatists and “fighting with them.” He also said NATO estimated that about 20,000 Russian troops were deployed on Russian territory near the Ukrainian border.
The United States ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, said in a series of Twitter messages that Russian military assistance to the separatists had failed to help them sufficiently, “so now an increasing number of Russian troops are intervening directly in fighting on Ukrainian territory.” He also assertedthat Russia had sent its newest air defense systems, including an effective weapon, the SA-22, into eastern Ukraine, “and is now directly involved in the fighting.”
In Washington, President Obama condemned the Russian actions, calling them part of a pattern of behavior that began months ago, which he said had already led to Russia’s political and economic isolation because of Western sanctions. Mr. Obama told a news conference that he expected that the United States and its European partners would take further measures, although he did not characterize the latest Russia actions as an invasion, or say what addition sanctions might be imposed, or when.
Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the national security council, said that the Ukrainian military was planning a counteroffensive against the separatists and what he called “more and more Russians” but declined to provide details.
Separatists aided by Russia held the town of Novoazovsk, he said, with Ukrainian forces having retreated a day earlier. At a briefing in Kiev, Colonel Lysenko described that retreat as a regrouping of Ukrainian forces to better protect Mariupol, a key southern city now under threat.
Russia officials continued to deny sending soldiers or weapons to Ukraine. But the leader of the main separatist group in southeastern Ukraine said that up to 4,000 Russians, including active-duty soldiers currently on leave, had been fighting against Ukrainian government forces, Russian television reported.
“There are active soldiers fighting among us who preferred to spend their vacation not on the beach, but with us, among their brothers, who are fighting for their freedom,” Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a rebel commander and the prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, said in an interview on Russian state-run television.
Mr. Zakharchenko said that 3,000 to 4,000 Russians had fought alongside separatists since the conflict erupted.
That assertion evaded the issue of direct Russian involvement by painting the soldiers as volunteers. It suggests, however, that Moscow still seeks to organize and to some extent control a force that could be operated at arm’s length with a backbone of local participation.
While the United States and its European allies have condemned Russia, they have not responded to criticism that the Ukrainian tactics against the separatists have included shelling civilian areas in rebel strongholds. The United Nations has estimated that 2,000 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine violence.
A day after fighting erupted in the coastal town of Novoazovsk, NATO released satellite images it said show Russian artillery units operating in Eastern Ukraine. View full graphic »
The United Nations Security Council met in an emergency session on Ukraine on Thursday afternoon, during which the United States and other Western allies expressed outrage at what they described as a pattern of deceitful Russian aggression.
“Instead of listening, instead of heeding the demands of the international community and the rules of the international order, at every step, Russia has come before this Council to say everything except the truth,” said Samantha Power, the United States ambassador. “It has manipulated. It has obfuscated. It has outright lied. So we have learned to measure Russia by its actions and not by its words.”
Russia’s ambassador, Vitaly I. Churkin, did not deny that Russians were fighting in eastern Ukraine but said they were volunteers. He said the Ukrainian government was “waging war against its own people.”
Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Moscow of opening a new southern front to relieve pressure on the besieged insurgent redoubts of Donetsk and Luhansk farther north.
A separatist defeat in the eastern part of Ukraine would deliver a significant domestic political blow to Mr. Putin, whose popularity in Russia soared when he annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula last March. But the confrontation in the south raised the specter for the first time in months of a direct confrontation between Ukraine’s forces and those of its giant neighbor.
In eastern Ukraine, fighting intensified in cities and villages along the path of the forces advancing from the Russian border in what Western and Ukrainian officials have called a multipronged attack. The Ukrainian soldiers in the region southeast of Donetsk are now surrounded, as pro-Russian forces appear to control a road to the west.
The armored columns that captured Novoazovsk and now threaten Mariupol, far from the fighting around Luhansk and Donetsk, serve the separatist aim of diverting Ukrainian forces to deal with that new threat. Western analysts say the advance may also be the start of a ground offensive to seize Ukrainian territory for a land route connecting Russia to Crimea.
Mr. Zakharchenko, who says he has Ukrainian citizenship, took over as prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic this month, replacing Alexandr Borodai, a Russian. Several other Russians who had figured prominently in the rebel ranks, including the military commander Igor Strelkov, have also dropped from sight in recent weeks.
In the interview with the official satellite channel Rossiya 24, Mr. Zakharchenko said that many former professional Russian soldiers had come to Ukraine as volunteers, out of a sense of duty. “Many of them have gone home, but the majority have remained here,” Mr. Zakharchenko said. “Unfortunately, some have been killed.”
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MOSCOW — In a rare direct address to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin hailed on Friday the success of a recent rebel offensive and asked that a humanitarian corridor be opened to allow encircled Ukrainian Army units to retreat.
In an address to the “Novorossiya,” or New Russia, militia that was posted on the Kremlin website at 1:10 a.m., Mr. Putin said the rebels had “achieved a major success in intercepting Kiev’s military operation,” an offensive that Western governments have accused the Russian military of leading.
In light of the heightening of tensions, the Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, announced on Friday that a bill had been introduced in Parliament to urge for Ukraine’s nonaligned status to be canceled and for the country to “restore its aspirations to become a NATO member.”
“This law also reaffirms the main political goal of Ukraine — to become a member of the European Union,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said on his Facebook page, a clearinghouse for public announcements. “This law will prohibit the Ukrainian state to become part of any other economic, political or military alliances that would hinder the main goal of accession to the E.U.”
A day after fighting erupted in the coastal town of Novoazovsk, NATO released satellite images it said show Russian artillery units operating in Eastern Ukraine. View full graphic »
The law would prohibit Ukraine’s entrance into the Russian-led “Customs Union,” an economic grouping that includes Kazakhstan and Belarus that which Mr. Putin has promoted as a counterweight to the European Union.
The decision in December by the former President Viktor F. Yanukovych to spurn an association agreement with the European Union in favor of stronger ties with Russia sparked the Maidan protests in Kiev that eventually led to Mr. Yanukovych’s ouster.
In his message to the separatists, Mr. Putin said, “I call on the militia groups to open a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian service members who have been surrounded, so as to avoid any needless loss of life, giving them the opportunity to leave the combat area unimpeded and reunite with their families, to return them to their mothers, wives and children, and to quickly provide medical assistance to those who were injured in the course of the military operation.”
Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the rebel leader who said on Thursday that more than 3,000 Russians, including active soldiers on leave, had fought among the separatists, quickly agreed to Mr. Putin’s proposal.
“With all respect to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the president of the country, which has helped us very much with moral support, we are ready to grant humanitarian corridors to the Ukrainian divisions surrounded in these pockets,” Mr. Zakharchenko said. Conditions included the surrender of all heavy armaments and ammunition.
The separatist counteroffensive, which began on Wednesday, has opened a new military front along the Sea of Azov and put the rebels within striking distance of Mariupol, a port city that is the second-largest in Ukraine’s southeast. Separatist leaders also said they had encircled 7,000 regular and irregular Ukrainian troops who had been cut off by the rapid advance of rebel tanks and artillery.
The offensive prompted fresh criticism from the West, and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said on Thursday that the possibility of imposing new sanctions against Russia would be discussed at a European Union summit meeting in Brussels on Saturday. In preparation for the summit meeting, European Union foreign ministers gathered in Milan on Friday to discuss the position of the 28-nation bloc.
The dollar was trading at more than 37 rubles on Friday morning, a historical high that exceeded the spike after the March annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the 2008 financial crisis.
Natalia Orlova, head economist for Alfa Bank, said that reports of a Russian military presence inside Ukraine, which would indicate the possibility of “a new round of escalation,” caused the rapid fall of the ruble on Thursday.
“I think it’s all about sanctions,” Ms. Orlova said by telephone on Friday. “The market doesn’t perceive Russia as being a very active part of the military conflict, so the market, in other words, is not really pricing in Russian participation in the war. The market is just pricing the new round of sanctions.”
A decision by the Russian central bank not to support the ruble had also made the drop more dramatic, she said. That decision was made in June after Moscow had already spent an estimated $25 billion to prop up the ruble.
Ukrainian and Western leaders have accused Mr. Putin of backing the rebels with arms, money and men, and have demanded that Russia use its influence over the separatists to put a stop to the fighting. Insofar as NATO and Western governments accused Russia on Thursday of having well over 1,000 active troops in Ukraine, it seemed unlikely that Mr. Putin’s curt and congratulatory statement would assuage anger toward him.
Speaking at an education forum for students on Friday, Mr. Putin said that Ukrainian government actions against the cities in that country’s southeast reminded him of the Nazi siege of Leningrad — one of the darkest and most emotional touchstones of recent Russian history. The government in Kiev was trying to destroy the will of the people who resist, he said.
“It reminds me of World War II, when German forces encircled Russian cities like Leningrad and hit residential quarters with heavy artillery,” he told students during a question-and-answer session broadcast live on state television.
Talking about the West, Mr. Putin said the position of “our partners,” as he understood it, was to give the Ukrainian authorities some time to shell the cities before they sat down to negotiate.
But Mr. Putin said he thought the solution to the situation was to force the government in Kiev to sit down to substantive talks with the rebels, not just on technical issues like the exchange of prisoners of war.
“You have to launch substantive negotiations, you have to understand what kinds of rights the people of Donbas and Luhansk will have,” Mr. Putin told the students at a forum held in a lake resort at Seliger, northwest of Moscow. “You have to assure the rights of these peoples.”
“But they don’t want to do that, that is the problem,” he said.
Mr. Putin also repeated his position that Russian soldiers captured inside Ukraine had gotten lost. He described the fighting as a “common tragedy” for the Slavic people, who shared the same roots, and hence should be solved.
Ukrainian irregular troops, who primarily serve in volunteer battalions, have complained in recent days of receiving no military support in pockets of strong separatist resistance. Semyon Semenchenko, the head of the pro-Kiev Donbass battalion, whose forces have been pinned down for more than a week in the city of Ilovaysk, called on Facebook for protests at the army’s headquarters in Kiev.
“We have been tricked once again,” Mr. Semenchenko wrote on Wednesday. “There will be no help today. Those responsible are the minister of defense and the commander of the ATO,” he wrote, using the shorthand for Kiev’s anti-terrorist operation against the rebels in the east.
The Ukrainian news media also reported that the Transcarpathian battalion, another pro-Kiev group, had returned home to western Ukraine after its soldiers came under heavy artillery fire from Grad rockets.
Correction: August 29, 2014
An earlier version of this article misstated the trading value of the dollar to the ruble on Friday morning. It was trading at more than 37 rubles to the dollar, not at more than 37 dollars to the ruble.
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By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Tougher sanctions are needed to show President Vladimir Putin of Russia that the West views his escalating aggression in Ukraine as a threat.
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The evidence has been mounting for some time, but there is no longer any doubt: Russian troops are in Ukraine, not as volunteers, as the rebel commander in Donetsk would have the world believe, but in units equipped with mobile artillery and heavy military equipment.
A senior NATO officer reported on Thursday that the alliance had monitored a “significant escalation” in Russia’s military “interference” in Ukraine, and that well over 1,000 Russian soldiers are operating inside the southeast of the country. The officer, Brig. Gen. Nico Tak, called it “interference,” presumably because “invasion” would mean an all-out military assault. But, by any name, it is a large and unacceptable escalation of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
President Obama was right in his news conference on Thursday to rule out military action, but new, tougher Western economic sanctions are obviously needed to make clear to President Vladimir Putin of Russia that the West views his lies and escalating aggression as a major threat.
Mr. Obama declined to speak of an “invasion” in his relatively restrained comments, describing the latest developments only as “a continuation” of what Russia has been up to and of his “expectation” that the allies will deepen the sanctions. His ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, was more blunt in her address Thursday to the Security Council, where she described Russia’s actions as “a deliberate effort to support, and now fight alongside, illegal separatists in another sovereign country.” That should be the reality guiding Mr. Obama when he meets with NATO allies in Wales next week.
NATO suspects the Russian goal is to prevent a military defeat of the rebels and freeze the conflict in an open-ended cease-fire, with Russia left in effective control of Ukraine’s industrial heartland, following the template of Russia’s frozen conflicts with Moldova and Georgia. But Russia’s motive is not the issue here. It is Russia’s violation of a cardinal principle of the international order since World War II — states do not seize territory by force.
Mr. Putin has played his dangerous game in Ukraine with cunning and deceit since the ouster in February of the corrupt Viktor Yanukovych lost him a Ukrainian president he could manipulate. First he annexed Crimea outright. Shocking and outrageous as that was, at least no blood was shed; Mr. Putin claimed that history and a Russian population as justification for that seizure. The Western reaction was limited to modest sanctions.
Since then, Mr. Putin has turned his attention to southeastern Ukraine, holding intimidating military exercises on the Ukrainian border and sending in ever more men and arms in support of secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk, all the while falsely denying any Russian involvement other than humanitarian concern for the ethnic Russian population.
After the rebels shot down a Malaysian jetliner with a Russian missile, and after Kiev made gains against the rebels, Russia’s involvement became more overt, with reports of artillery fire across the border, armored columns crossing into Ukraine and Russian soldiers caught or killed inside Ukraine. The United States and the European Union ratcheted up the sanctions, but Mr. Putin continued to deny any involvement. He will no doubt deny the latest evidence as well, and will cynically claim some Ukrainian or Western plot.
Comments from European leaders on Thursday showed they recognize the danger of this moment. European Union leaders meeting on Saturday must join the United States in expanding the economic sanctions. France should seriously reconsider delivering the Mistral assault ships it has sold Russia. And when NATO leaders gather next week, they should give strong reassurances to NATO members along Russia’s borders that they will be protected should Moscow turn its attentions on them.
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Россия, будучи страной, принадлежащей к туранской цивилизации с византийскими влияниями, не может быть образцом для европейских консерваторов. Как и во времена Золотой орды, религия понимается здесь утилитарно, царит милитаризм, а главной ценностью выступает власть. К сожалению, западные правые и националисты не замечают этих глубинных цивилизационных противоречий.
Такие решения Путина, как запрет на пропаганду гомосексуализма, цензура непристойного контента в интернете или запрет абортов, умножили число его поклонников среди западных правых. Известный консервативный публицист Род Дреер (Rod Dreher) на страницах American Conservative похвалил российского президента за стремление оживить православные традиции. В свою очередь, один из издателей Financial Times, Кристофер Колдуэлл (Christopher Caldwell) заявил, что Запад ничуть не более демократичен, чем Россия. В позитивном духе высказывался о Путине также автор речей президента Никсона Патрик Бьюкенен (Patrick Buchanan) в <a href="http://theamericanconservative.com" rel="nofollow">theamericanconservative.com</a>. Он намекал на то, что российского лидера можно назвать палеоконсерватором, добавляя: «Хотя его защита традиционных ценностей вызвала насмешки западных СМИ и культурных элит, Путин не ошибается, утверждая, что он может говорить от имени значительной части человечества». Особую популярность кремлевский властитель приобрел в рядах американских защитников семьи. Мэтт Барбер (Matt Barber) из Liberty Counsel даже заявил на портале <a href="http://wnd.com" rel="nofollow">wnd.com</a>, что можно вполне обоснованно назвать Путина моральным лидером мира.
Российский президент популярен также среди европейских националистов. Своего восхищения Путиным не скрывает Марин Ле Пен (Marine Le Pen) — дочь Жан-Мари Ле Пена (Jean-Marie Le Pen). Руководительница «Национального фронта» убеждена, что крымский референдум прошел честно, она призывает отказаться от проамериканской политики и завязать тесное сотрудничество с Москвой. Пророссийскую позицию занимает также венгерская националистическая партия «За лучшую Венгрию», которая поддержала референдум в Крыму. Это не единственные примеры правых и националистов, которые поддерживают Кремль. Напрашивается вопрос: на самом ли деле ли европейские католики и консерваторы могут видеть в нем оплот нравственного порядка и вступить с ним в союз против разложившегося Запада?
Российская равнина
На то, как отличается Россия от нашей цивилизации, обращали внимание многие мыслители. Еще Освальд Шпенглер (Oswald Spengler) в «Закате Европы» писал, что для российской цивилизации характерно отрицание. Даже слово «небо», происходящее от «нет» указывает не на позитивные ценности, а на освобождение от страданий бытия. Это, конечно, лишь часть правды, и не самая важная. Как отмечает Шпенглер, русский, думая о будущем мире, смотрит не вверх, а вдаль. Бескрайняя равнина становится прасимволом российской цивилизации, как прасимволом западной — бесконечное пространство, а античной — гармоничное человеческое тело. Равнина символизирует растворение индивидуума в коллективной эгалитарной массе.
Это признают сами россияне. Как говорит Александр Дугин, в православной антропологии нет слов "индивидуум, индивидуальный". Это, по его мнению, связано с православием, акцентирующим над-индивидуальность. Человек воспринимается как часть более крупной общности. И поэтому спасается не он сам, а кто-то спасает посредством него. «В католицизме человек — это индивидуум, неделимая целостность, а в православии — дивидуум, то есть делимая личность», — пишет ведущий идеолог Кремля.
Поскреби русского — найдешь татарина
Российский феномен в значительной мере объясняют нашествия монголов и их начавшееся в середине XIII века 240-летнее господство над Россией. Именно в этот период она оказалась под влиянием орд, цивилизацию которых польский исследователь Феликс Конечный (Feliks Koneczny) назвал туранской. Следы такого типа организации общественной жизни можно легко обнаружить в современной России. Хотя упомянутое нашествие был актом агрессии, монгольская цивилизация слилась с российской. Любопытно, что кремлевские власти до сих пор культивируют чувство горечи по поводу короткой атаки Польши в начале XVII века, а не по поводу длившегося два с половиной века господства монголов. Польское нашествие кажется им более опасным, потому что оно несло в себе угрозу цивилизационных изменений. Александр Дугин восхваляет монгольское вторжение, как практически божественное вмешательство. По его мнению, оно создало новую «братскую» этику.
Туранская цивилизация берет начало в кочевых азиатских племенах, которые уже в древние времена нападали на более развитые государства. Именно для защиты от них в III веке до нашей эры была возведена Великая китайская стена. Мощь туранской цивилизации возросла после того, как в 1206 году Чингисхан отправился завоевывать мир. После его смерти империя была разделена на четыре части, однако завоевания продолжались. В середине XIII века монголы отказались, однако, от нападений на Европу. В 1254 году у них появилось государство со столицей в Сарай-Бату, которое создала Золотая орда Батыя. Именно оно господствовало над русскими землями в течение достаточно долгого периода, чтобы оказать на их цивилизацию влияние, следы которого видны до сих пор.
Как отмечает Мечислав Курьяньский (Mieczysław Kuriański) на портале perspectiva.pl, это государство, как и другие монгольские государственные образования, было нацелено на войну и устроено по военному принципу. В нем не существовало частной сферы. Если в средневековой Европе процветали всевозможные организации, оказывавшие посредничество в контактах между властителем и отдельным человеком, как гильдии, религиозные сообщества, университеты и города, то у монголов общественной жизни практически не было. На эту характерную особенность обращал внимание Конечный. По мнению польского ученого, в туранской цивилизации самой большой ценностью является власть, а правитель забоится здесь не, как у Аристотеля, об общественном благе, а о собственной выгоде. В борьбе за власть можно было убить любого, даже отца, мать, брата, потому что дело касается важнейшей ценности — личности властителя. Поэтому власть и связанные с ней привилегии, как пишет Курьяньский, считались у монголов самоценной целью. Воля властителя была высшим законом, и этика за ее пределами, в принципе, не существовала.
Суровый хан, суровый царь...
Религия у монголов служила не столько для установления контактов с богом, сколько для обоснования владычества правителя. Верили, что он олицетворяет волю небес, и поэтому сопротивляться ему нельзя. Хан считался помазанным для власти над всем миром. Как отметил Эрик Фегелин (Eric Voegelin) в «Новой науке политики», монгольские правители полагали, что они уже являются законными властителями мира, и трактовали сопротивление независимых государств как неоправданный бунт против этого права. Поэтому войны считались карательными экспедициями против бунтовщиков.
В более поздние времена роль хана взял на себя царь. В российском православии туранские влияния перемешиваются с византийской роскошью и доминированием государства над Церковью. Царь — это церемониймейстер, скрупулезный отправитель ритуалов по образцу китайского императора, по образцу своего клира, неразрывной частью которого он является, и которым он управляет, писал Ален Безансон (Alain Besançon) в книге «Святая русь».
Российского правителя, помимо набожности, отличает справедливость и суровость. Ему совершенно чужды принципы милосердия, а его роль — это, в первую очередь, наказание. В такую миссию искренне верил Иван Грозный, который говорил: «Мне предстоит суд не только за свои грехи, вольные или невольные, но и за грехи моих подданных, совершенные из-за моей неосмотрительности». Согласно легенде, Бог призвал Ивана на царский трон именно из-за его исключительной жестокости.
Эта жестокость российских властителей имела долгую традицию, кульминацией которой стал советский тоталитаризм — адская смесь туранско-византийской России и марксистской идеологии. И хотя эта идеология провозглашала атеизм, в момент испытаний, когда Гитлер напал на СССР, Сталин, не колеблясь, велел устроить перегринацию (путешествие) иконы Казанской Богоматери. Потом Советский Союз вернулся к атеистической политике.
Сейчас, после краткого периода заигрывания с Западом и либерализма периода Горбачева и Ельцина, мы наблюдаем возвращение к российским традициям. История не закончилась, и мы стали свидетелями хантингтоновского столкновения цивилизаций. Россия со своим культом власти, прагматичной трактовкой религии и ее подчинением политике и, наконец, с усилением деспотизма и подавлением свобод индивидуума все больше открывает свое туранское обличье.
Такие решения Путина, как запрет на пропаганду гомосексуализма, цензура непристойного контента в интернете или запрет абортов, умножили число его поклонников среди западных правых. Известный консервативный публицист Род Дреер (Rod Dreher) на страницах American Conservative похвалил российского президента за стремление оживить православные традиции. В свою очередь, один из издателей Financial Times, Кристофер Колдуэлл (Christopher Caldwell) заявил, что Запад ничуть не более демократичен, чем Россия. В позитивном духе высказывался о Путине также автор речей президента Никсона Патрик Бьюкенен (Patrick Buchanan) в <a href="http://theamericanconservative.com" rel="nofollow">theamericanconservative.com</a>. Он намекал на то, что российского лидера можно назвать палеоконсерватором, добавляя: «Хотя его защита традиционных ценностей вызвала насмешки западных СМИ и культурных элит, Путин не ошибается, утверждая, что он может говорить от имени значительной части человечества». Особую популярность кремлевский властитель приобрел в рядах американских защитников семьи. Мэтт Барбер (Matt Barber) из Liberty Counsel даже заявил на портале <a href="http://wnd.com" rel="nofollow">wnd.com</a>, что можно вполне обоснованно назвать Путина моральным лидером мира.
Российский президент популярен также среди европейских националистов. Своего восхищения Путиным не скрывает Марин Ле Пен (Marine Le Pen) — дочь Жан-Мари Ле Пена (Jean-Marie Le Pen). Руководительница «Национального фронта» убеждена, что крымский референдум прошел честно, она призывает отказаться от проамериканской политики и завязать тесное сотрудничество с Москвой. Пророссийскую позицию занимает также венгерская националистическая партия «За лучшую Венгрию», которая поддержала референдум в Крыму. Это не единственные примеры правых и националистов, которые поддерживают Кремль. Напрашивается вопрос: на самом ли деле ли европейские католики и консерваторы могут видеть в нем оплот нравственного порядка и вступить с ним в союз против разложившегося Запада?
Российская равнина
На то, как отличается Россия от нашей цивилизации, обращали внимание многие мыслители. Еще Освальд Шпенглер (Oswald Spengler) в «Закате Европы» писал, что для российской цивилизации характерно отрицание. Даже слово «небо», происходящее от «нет» указывает не на позитивные ценности, а на освобождение от страданий бытия. Это, конечно, лишь часть правды, и не самая важная. Как отмечает Шпенглер, русский, думая о будущем мире, смотрит не вверх, а вдаль. Бескрайняя равнина становится прасимволом российской цивилизации, как прасимволом западной — бесконечное пространство, а античной — гармоничное человеческое тело. Равнина символизирует растворение индивидуума в коллективной эгалитарной массе.
Это признают сами россияне. Как говорит Александр Дугин, в православной антропологии нет слов "индивидуум, индивидуальный". Это, по его мнению, связано с православием, акцентирующим над-индивидуальность. Человек воспринимается как часть более крупной общности. И поэтому спасается не он сам, а кто-то спасает посредством него. «В католицизме человек — это индивидуум, неделимая целостность, а в православии — дивидуум, то есть делимая личность», — пишет ведущий идеолог Кремля.
Поскреби русского — найдешь татарина
Российский феномен в значительной мере объясняют нашествия монголов и их начавшееся в середине XIII века 240-летнее господство над Россией. Именно в этот период она оказалась под влиянием орд, цивилизацию которых польский исследователь Феликс Конечный (Feliks Koneczny) назвал туранской. Следы такого типа организации общественной жизни можно легко обнаружить в современной России. Хотя упомянутое нашествие был актом агрессии, монгольская цивилизация слилась с российской. Любопытно, что кремлевские власти до сих пор культивируют чувство горечи по поводу короткой атаки Польши в начале XVII века, а не по поводу длившегося два с половиной века господства монголов. Польское нашествие кажется им более опасным, потому что оно несло в себе угрозу цивилизационных изменений. Александр Дугин восхваляет монгольское вторжение, как практически божественное вмешательство. По его мнению, оно создало новую «братскую» этику.
Туранская цивилизация берет начало в кочевых азиатских племенах, которые уже в древние времена нападали на более развитые государства. Именно для защиты от них в III веке до нашей эры была возведена Великая китайская стена. Мощь туранской цивилизации возросла после того, как в 1206 году Чингисхан отправился завоевывать мир. После его смерти империя была разделена на четыре части, однако завоевания продолжались. В середине XIII века монголы отказались, однако, от нападений на Европу. В 1254 году у них появилось государство со столицей в Сарай-Бату, которое создала Золотая орда Батыя. Именно оно господствовало над русскими землями в течение достаточно долгого периода, чтобы оказать на их цивилизацию влияние, следы которого видны до сих пор.
Как отмечает Мечислав Курьяньский (Mieczysław Kuriański) на портале perspectiva.pl, это государство, как и другие монгольские государственные образования, было нацелено на войну и устроено по военному принципу. В нем не существовало частной сферы. Если в средневековой Европе процветали всевозможные организации, оказывавшие посредничество в контактах между властителем и отдельным человеком, как гильдии, религиозные сообщества, университеты и города, то у монголов общественной жизни практически не было. На эту характерную особенность обращал внимание Конечный. По мнению польского ученого, в туранской цивилизации самой большой ценностью является власть, а правитель забоится здесь не, как у Аристотеля, об общественном благе, а о собственной выгоде. В борьбе за власть можно было убить любого, даже отца, мать, брата, потому что дело касается важнейшей ценности — личности властителя. Поэтому власть и связанные с ней привилегии, как пишет Курьяньский, считались у монголов самоценной целью. Воля властителя была высшим законом, и этика за ее пределами, в принципе, не существовала.
Суровый хан, суровый царь...
Религия у монголов служила не столько для установления контактов с богом, сколько для обоснования владычества правителя. Верили, что он олицетворяет волю небес, и поэтому сопротивляться ему нельзя. Хан считался помазанным для власти над всем миром. Как отметил Эрик Фегелин (Eric Voegelin) в «Новой науке политики», монгольские правители полагали, что они уже являются законными властителями мира, и трактовали сопротивление независимых государств как неоправданный бунт против этого права. Поэтому войны считались карательными экспедициями против бунтовщиков.
В более поздние времена роль хана взял на себя царь. В российском православии туранские влияния перемешиваются с византийской роскошью и доминированием государства над Церковью. Царь — это церемониймейстер, скрупулезный отправитель ритуалов по образцу китайского императора, по образцу своего клира, неразрывной частью которого он является, и которым он управляет, писал Ален Безансон (Alain Besançon) в книге «Святая русь».
Российского правителя, помимо набожности, отличает справедливость и суровость. Ему совершенно чужды принципы милосердия, а его роль — это, в первую очередь, наказание. В такую миссию искренне верил Иван Грозный, который говорил: «Мне предстоит суд не только за свои грехи, вольные или невольные, но и за грехи моих подданных, совершенные из-за моей неосмотрительности». Согласно легенде, Бог призвал Ивана на царский трон именно из-за его исключительной жестокости.
Эта жестокость российских властителей имела долгую традицию, кульминацией которой стал советский тоталитаризм — адская смесь туранско-византийской России и марксистской идеологии. И хотя эта идеология провозглашала атеизм, в момент испытаний, когда Гитлер напал на СССР, Сталин, не колеблясь, велел устроить перегринацию (путешествие) иконы Казанской Богоматери. Потом Советский Союз вернулся к атеистической политике.
Сейчас, после краткого периода заигрывания с Западом и либерализма периода Горбачева и Ельцина, мы наблюдаем возвращение к российским традициям. История не закончилась, и мы стали свидетелями хантингтоновского столкновения цивилизаций. Россия со своим культом власти, прагматичной трактовкой религии и ее подчинением политике и, наконец, с усилением деспотизма и подавлением свобод индивидуума все больше открывает свое туранское обличье.
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Количество погибших бойцов сил антитеррористической операции на Донбассе по состоянию на утро 29 августа достигло 789 человек. Об этом сообщил спикер информационно-аналитического центра Совета национальной безопасности и обороны Украины Андрей Лысенко.
«Всего с начала операции погибло 789 человек, 2789 – ранены», - заявил Лысенко.
При этом за последние сутки с 28 на 29 августа, как отметил Лысенко, погибли 10 бойцов сил АТО и 30 были ранены, сообщает «РБК-Украина».
Напомним, АТО на Донбассе проходит с апреля 2014 г. Как ранее сообщалось, по данным ООН, число погибших в результате боев в Украине увеличилось до 2 593 человек.
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Putin: Ukrainian forces behaving like Nazis
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President hits back as Nato accuses Russia of 'blatant violation' of Ukraine's sovereignty
Russian president Vladimir Putin has hit back at accusations that he has effectively invaded Ukraine, accusing Ukrainian forces of behaving like Nazis in the conflict in the east, and ominously threatening to take his standoff with the west into the disputed Arctic.
Hours after Barack Obama accused Russia of sending troops into Ukraine and fuelling an upsurge in the separatist war, Putin retorted that the Ukrainian army was the villain of the piece, targeting residential areas of towns and cities like German troops did in the former Soviet Union.
He added that Russians and Ukrainians "are practically one people", reprising a theme of an earlier statement in which he referred to the disputed areas of southeastern Ukraine as Novorossiya – a throwback to tsarist times when the area was under Moscow rule.
And he made a pointed reference to the Arctic, which with its bounteous energy reserves and thawing waterways is emerging as a new potential conflict between Russia and its western rivals. "Our interests are concentrated in the Arctic. And of course we should pay more attention to issues of development of the Arctic and the strengthening of our position," Putin told a youth camp outside Moscow.
Russia's latest alleged interventions in Ukraine, in which it stands accused of sending as many as 1,000 soldiers and military hardware across the border to bolster the flagging separatist insurrection, has prompted a flurry of emergency meetings.
A satellite image showing what Nato claims are self-propelled Russian artillery units inside Ukraine. Photograph: Nato/DigitalGlobe/EPA
Nato ambassadors emerged from a meeting on Friday morning to accuse Russia of a "blatant violation" of Ukraine's sovereignty. "Despite Moscow's hollow denials, it is now clear that Russian troops and equipment have illegally crossed the border into eastern and south-eastern Ukraine," its secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.
Barack Obama convened his national security council on Thursday, and emerged to say that Moscow was responsible for the recent upsurge in violence, in which a new front has opened up in Ukraine's far southeast close to the city of Mariupol.
Speaking at a news conference in Washington, the US president said Russia was encouraging, training, arming and funding separatists in the region and warned Moscow that it faced further isolation.
He said: "Russia has deliberately and repeatedly violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and the new images of Russian forces inside Ukraine make that plain for the world to see. This comes as Ukrainian forces are making progress against the separatists."
Barack Obama: 'Russia has deliberately and repeatedly violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine'. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Obama again ruled out US military action, but threatened a further tightening of sanctions.
"As a result of the actions Russia has already taken, and the major sanctions we've imposed with our European and international partners, Russia is already more isolated that at any time since the end of the cold war," he said. "Capital is fleeing. Investors are increasingly staying out. Its economy is in decline." Financial markets echoed his words, and the ruble fell to an all-time low against the dollar on Friday morning.
Putin hit back by saying it was the Ukrainians who had failed to make peace happen. "It is necessary to force the Ukrainian authorities to substantively begin these talks – not on technical issues … the talks must be substantive," Putin said. "Small villages and large cities [are] surrounded by the Ukrainian army, which is directly hitting residential areas with the aim of destroying the infrastructure … It sadly reminds me the events of the second world war, when German fascist … occupants surrounded our cities."
For its part, Ukraine raised the stakes further this morning when the prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk said he would try to take the country into Nato. Ukraine has formally maintained a position of non-alignment since its independence in 1991; the current crisis started over deep divisions in the country over whether to align itself more closely with the EU or turn towards the Russian camp.
Russian soldiers near the border with Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters
The UN security council met on Thursday night, and the British ambassador Mark Lyall Grant repeated Nato assertions that Russia had deployed more than 1,000 troops in Ukraine.
"Formed units of the armed forces of the Russian federation are now directly engaged in fighting inside Ukraine against the armed forces of Ukraine. These units consist of well over 1,000 regular Russian troops equipped with armoured vehicles, artillery and air defence systems," he said.
State department spokeswoman Jen Psaki amplified Obama's comments with details of Russia's involvement in Ukraine.
"Russia has … stepped up its presence in eastern Ukraine and intervened directly with combat forces, armoured vehicles, artillery, and surface-to-air systems, and is actively fighting Ukrainian forces as well as playing a direct supporting role to the separatists' proxies and mercenaries," she told a media briefing.
Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, accused Russia of lying about its involvement in Ukraine. "It has manipulated. It has obfuscated. It has outright lied," she said.
"The mask is coming off. In these acts, these recent acts, we see Russia's actions for what they are: a deliberate effort to support, and now fight alongside, illegal separatists in another sovereign country."
Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, responded: "There are Russian volunteers in eastern parts of Ukraine. No one is hiding that." Russia has denied that its troops are in Ukraine helping separatists fight the Ukrainian army.
But back at home, relatives of soldiers have started to break ranks, publicising the fact that their kin are in Ukraine.
One grandfather, Mikhail Smirnov, has told the Guardian that his 22-year-old grandson, Stanislav Smirnov, sent a message from the Ukrainian border on 19 August saying his motor rifle brigade is "being deployed". They have heard nothing since.
"Our government has gone too far –- it has lost its head," the grandfather said. When reminded that Moscow claims it has no troops in Ukraine, he added: "Hey, we are not blind."
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The US rules out military action against Russia but Barack Obama blames the Kremlin for the escalation of violence in eastern Ukraine
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