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Home›Vladimir Putin›Analysis: Only Putin can end the war, but he’s stepping up its brutal record and potential for spillover

Analysis: Only Putin can end the war, but he’s stepping up its brutal record and potential for spillover

By Larry Bowman
March 14, 2022
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The escalation of his vicious assault by the Russian president over the weekend – bringing the conflict closer to NATO territory in Poland and pouring missiles and artillery into civilian areas devastated by an escalating humanitarian crisis. worsens – suggests he is far from ready for a ceasefire.
In fact, the war is only getting more dangerous and on the verge of spiraling out of control after Moscow announced to the United States that it would target Western arms supplies to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which helped slow the process. Russian advance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Sunday evening that it was only a matter of time before Russian missiles land in NATO territory – as he renewed his call for the alliance to shut down the skies from his country.

While some comments from Ukrainian, Russian and American officials raised the possibility of progress in the negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which are due to resume on Monday, Putin on Saturday defied a call from French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for a immediate ceasefire. And everything indicates that the Russian leader, despite presiding over an invasion that has turned Russia into an economic and diplomatic pariah, plans to pressure and destroy Ukraine to pursue his personal ambition to prevent it from joining the ‘West.

The agony of Ukrainian civilians is only getting worse. An already dire situation is deteriorating in the besieged city of Mariupol, where city officials said more than 2,000 civilians had died. There is no electricity, water or heating and people are short of food and water. Extensive damage was also reported in the cities of Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Dnipro, Chernihiv and Sumy, which came under relentless Russian bombardment. And an American journalist and filmmaker, Brent Renaud, was killed by Russian forces on Sunday, Kiev police said, while another American journalist was injured. The exact circumstances of the attack are yet to be determined.

None of these developments suggest that the war is nearing a point where ceasefire negotiations or peace talks could succeed. And the risks of a wider conflict appear to be growing.

US warns China against offering ‘lifeline’ to Russia

In fact, the story of the invasion, dominated in its early stages by the heroic resistance of the outnumbered Ukrainians and Zelensky, seems to be taking a dark turn. Putin appears indifferent to the human toll his actions have caused in a conflict that may be critical to his own ability to stay in power in Moscow.

In another new dimension of what threatens to become a wider geopolitical confrontation, the United States has warned China that it must not provide a “lifeline” to help Russia escape sanctions strangling its economy. following its brutal invasion, ahead of crucial talks between senior US officials and Chinese officials in Europe on Monday.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan sent a clear message to Beijing, which has yet to show any signs of getting over it. press the Russian leader to end the war. He told Dana Bash that Washington is “watching closely the extent to which China actually provides any form of support, material or economic, to Russia.”

“We are communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions-busting efforts or support for Russia to fulfill them,” Sullivan said. “We will not allow this to continue and for there to be a lifeline for Russia from these economic sanctions from any country in the world.” Sullivan, who will meet his Chinese counterpart in Rome on Monday, did not say whether Chinese companies or government entities would face sanctions if they helped Russia.

The rationale for the warning became clear when a senior US official said on Sunday that Russia had asked China for military assistance, including drones. Russia has also asked for economic support, according to another US official familiar with the matter who declined to detail the Chinese reaction but said they had responded.

Asked by CNN about the report of Russia’s request for military aid, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the United States, said in a statement: “I have never heard of it.” .

The request could be interpreted as a sign of growing Russian desperation. Any Chinese aid to Moscow would also amplify the strategic importance of the war in Ukraine and could enshrine the long-standing American nightmare of a strategic pact between Beijing and Moscow at a time when China is emerging as the main superpower rival of the 21st century America. Prior to the invasion, Putin traveled to China to meet President Xi Jinping, where the two sides agreed on a “boundless” friendship. According to reports, the Russian leader has pledged not to invade Ukraine until after the recent Winter Olympics in Beijing. Some Western officials hope China will use its newfound influence to help end the war. But in recent days, state media in Beijing have amplified Russian false propaganda that the US has a chemical and biological weapons lab in Ukraine, which US officials say could be a precursor to the use such weapons by Russia during the war.

There is no public indication that Beijing is helping Putin’s war effort – and there are reasons why China might not see its interests as fully reflecting those of Moscow in this situation. It is widely believed that Xi will secure a historic third term in power at the Communist Party’s 20th National Congress in Beijing this fall. In such an important year, the Chinese government might be wary of its companies facing cascading sanctions. Soaring oil prices could, in the long term, hurt its economy at a time when its galloping growth rates are slowing.

Western and international sanctions have plunged Russia’s economy and banking system into deep crisis, but the extreme pain they will inflict may not come quickly enough to save Ukraine from Putin’s relentless barrage. Any Chinese aid, if it came, could weaken the Western grip on the Russian economy and ease political pressure on Putin to change course.

War becomes more dangerous

Putin is stepping up his bombardment of Ukraine rather than backing down.

In an alarming new expansion of the war, Russian missiles fired from planes over the Black Seas and Azov hit a military base near Lviv, killing at least 35 people on Sunday, local authorities said. The target was dangerously close to the border of NATO member Poland. While President Joe Biden has said he will not send US troops to Ukraine, he has pledged to defend “every inch” of Western alliance territory.

Another sign of Putin’s aggressive intention, after more than three weeks of being bogged down in the country, his troops were less than 25 km from the capital Kiev, according to British intelligence services on Saturday.

There were mixed signs in Europe and Washington on Sunday about the prospects for talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials, which have so far made little headway, as well as a broader international diplomatic effort to get Putin to accept a cease fire. US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman told Fox the sanctions pressure was starting to have an effect on the Russian leader.

“We see signs of a willingness to have real, serious negotiations,” Sherman said. But she added: “It looks like Vladimir Putin is intent on destroying Ukraine.” Sullivan was optimistic about the prospects for “State of the Union” diplomacy, saying Putin “doesn’t seem ready to stop the onslaught.”

Still, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak said he believed the talks could “lead to concrete results” in the coming days as Russia began talking “constructively”. And Leonid Slutsky, a member of the Russian delegation for the talks, said “significant progress” had been made in negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation since the start, Russian news agency RIA reported.

But the sides seem distant in principle, with Ukraine demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops. Moscow entered the conflict by calling on NATO to withdraw troops from former Warsaw Pact states in Eastern Europe, which is even less likely given Russia’s treatment of Ukraine.

And nothing Putin has done so far suggests he is considering reversing a plan that has devastated large parts of Ukraine and now appears to be focused on Kiev for the decisive battle.

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