Following are excerpts from David J. Kramer’s article “The Ukraine Invasion: One Year Later,” which appears in the journal World Affairs. Mr. Kramer is the senior director for human rights and human freedom at the McCain Institute in Washington. He previously served as the president of Freedom House. (The full text of the article is available at http://worldaffairsjournal.org/article/ukraine-invasion-one-year-later.)
…The crisis is far from over for Ukraine, much less for Russia, but there are conclusions one can draw that will be important for the remaining two years of the Obama administration, for the new Congress and for 2016 American presidential aspirants.
The first one is that Vladimir Putin is a threat to virtually everything the West stands for. The system he has overseen at home for the past 15 years is antithetical to our own; the effects of his foreign policy have been damaging to Western interests. Putin has consciously supported Bashar al-Assad’s slaughter of the Syrian people by arming Syrian forces; he has agreed with the mullahs to construct new nuclear reactors in Iran; he has menacingly reminded the world of Russia’s nuclear weapons capability; and, continuing his energy blackmail by other means, he has challenged NATO states and others with provocative military flights and submarine maneuvers. Given these challenges, we should set aside the reset button as long as he’s in power.
Second, we are in a crisis because of Putin, not because of us. We should stop seeing him as anything other than a paranoid authoritarian leader who oversees one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. Preventing his corruption from infiltrating and infecting our own systems should be a top priority. The West had no interest in picking a fight with Russia and turned to sanctions reluctantly. While Western policies over the years have not been perfect by any means, those who argue that NATO enlargement, EU outreach to Russia’s neighbors, or American policies over the years are to blame make an unconvincing case. …
The West should understand that it is time to stop talking about easing sanctions – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier are especially guilty of such talk – unless and until there is a real change in Russian policy. Sanctions are as much psychological as they are punitive, and loose chatter about lifting them prematurely will indicate to Putin a lack of resolve on the part of the West. He knows what he needs to do to ease the sanctions – he simply chooses not to do it. Rather than step back, Western leaders should instead tell him that more sanctions are coming unless he reverses policy, including, it bears remembering, on Crimea. …
A major mistake on the part of the West, and especially of the Obama administration, has been the refusal to provide Ukraine with the means to defend itself. Indeed, the public and repeated rejection of Ukrainian requests for antitank and antiaircraft weapons, among other things, sent Moscow a green light. An opportunity was missed when Congress unanimously passed legislation in December authorizing the provision of such military assistance to Ukraine, and the White House failed to say anything about its intentions in this regard in the signing statement. Since the onset of the crisis, Ukrainians have been disappointed by the Obama administration’s lack of support in this area, and they are right to feel so. Had we provided such assistance soon after Russia’s aggression, Putin might have thought twice before he sent in Russian forces in late August as the Ukrainian military was making headway in retaking parts of Donetsk and Luhansk. …