The leaders of the top 20 world economies are gathering in Hangzhou, China to tackle key issues facing global economic growth, trade, investment, climate change, energy and sustainable development. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland are meeting their Chinese counterparts to strengthen commercial ties and trade opportunities for Canada.
Joining this 11th G-20 Summit will be Russian President Vladimir Putin – who presides over an authoritarian and kleptocratic regime that systematically suppresses dissent at home through intimidation, control and assassination, wages war against neighboring states and persistently seeks to undermine the international rules-based order and global security.
Mr. Putin’s Russia is the greatest challenge to international peace and stability the world faces today. In the last two years, Mr. Putin’s Russia has occupied sovereign Ukrainian territory in Crimea, where a regime of terror has been instituted against all those who oppose the illegal occupation. The indigenous Crimean Tatar people, Ukrainian nationals and religious minorities have been targeted.
Mr. Putin’s Russia has invaded the eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, at a cost of over 9,500 lives and the displacement of some 1.4 million people. On July 17, 2014, Flight MH-17 was flying over Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine when it was shot down by Russian-backed terrorists with a Russian-made, Russian-supplied Buk missile system. All 298 people on board the flight were killed, including one Canadian student.
Russia’s war against Ukraine continues; Russian and proxy forces brazenly ignore the Minsk agreements, shelling Ukrainian forces daily with heavy weapons systems. Since May of this year, over 100 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and over 500 wounded as Russia continues to wage war in Ukraine’s eastern region in an attempt to turn Ukraine into a failed state.
Mr. Putin has propped up the murderous regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, greatly contributing to the misery and despair caused by the conflict that continues to rage there. The resulting refugee crisis has cost the world billions of dollars and has rocked political stability in the European Union, Canada and the United States. In 2008, Mr. Putin’s Russia invaded Georgia, and has for years destabilized Moldova and other states in the region.
The international community has been unequivocal in its condemnation of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere. It has sought to isolate Russia with sanctions and barred Russia from the G-8 until such time as Russia changes course. NATO has moved from reassuring its allies to deterring the Russian threat. These are half-measures, however. At best they’ve dampened Mr. Putin’s imperial ambitions; they have not reversed them.
Worryingly, there are increasingly loud calls coming from some European capitals to roll back sanctions against Russia and end its international isolation. These people have forgotten the words of Winston Churchill: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” We must never forget the painful lessons of history, nor the devastating cost that appeasement inevitably brings to the appeaser.
Some argue that continuing to isolate Russia will bring growing costs to their own states’ economies. These lost trade opportunities pale in comparison to the financial costs and human losses that have resulted from Russia’s imperial ambitions. The costs to Europe, Canada and the rest of the world will only grow if they allow Russia’s aggression to continue unchecked.
Mr. Putin has made it clear through his actions that he understands only strength. What is needed is precisely the opposite of appeasement – a condemnation of the existential threat to the international order posed by Mr. Putin’s Russia and a concerted multilateral effort to isolate and weaken his regime. This is not an attack on the Russian people – it’s an opportunity to assist Russia’s liberal-democrats in bringing human rights and democracy to Russia. Sanctions against Russia must be strengthened: Russia must be dropped from the SWIFT payments system and further isolated until it changes course, ending its escalating aggression against Ukraine and other states.
It’s just as important for the international community to support Ukraine, which is bravely resisting Russian aggression. Ukraine must receive assistance for its armed forces, continued economic aid and increased technical assistance for its reform efforts.
To continue to give Russia a seat at important decision-making forums such as the G-20 only confirms Mr. Putin’s profoundly cynical calculation – that short-term financial and economic interests always trump values and principles. It’s time for the international community to show him that he is wrong, that the values and principles for which we stand – and for which so many people around the world, including Ukrainians today, have fought and died – are not negotiable.
Suspending Russia’s membership from the G-20 would be a good start.
Paul Grod is president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and vice-president of the Ukrainian World Congress. The commentary above was published on September 2 on the website of iPolitics (see https://ipolitics.ca/2016/09/02/putin-has-no-business-being-at-the-g20/).