The U.S. is calling for more rigorous enforcement of sanctions against Russia after Russian ships fired on and seized three Ukrainian boats on Sunday, claiming the ships had ‘illegally’ entered its waters.
Russia has been using Ukraine as a provocation point for some time, so will the tougher enforcement of sanctions – which the U.S. State Department is calling for – make any difference to Vladimir Putin?
The Cipher Brief talked to national security expert Rob Dannenberg about what would have an impact on the Russian President's provocative measures. Dannenberg is a 24-year veteran of the CIA who served as chief of operations for the Counterterrorism Center, chief of the Central Eurasia Division and chief of the CIA’s Information Operations Center. Dannenberg is also the former managing director and head of the Office of Global Security for Goldman Sachs, and the former director of International Security Affairs for BP.
The Cipher Brief talked to national security expert Rob Dannenberg about what would have an impact on the Russian President's provocative measures. The Cipher Brief: Give us a sense of the background here. The provocation didn’t come out of nowhere. What do we need to know?
Dannenberg: This crisis has been building for some time, at least since the construction began on the Kerch Strait bridge nearly two years ago. Russia has been impeding sea traffic through the strait with increasing assertiveness for nearly a year and with increasing Russian Air Force activity over the Sea of Azov this year. The Ukrainians have appealed to the U.S. and NATO for assistance including requests for anti-ship batteries to push back on ‘Russian aggression’ as they term it. The Russians have asserted that the 2003 Treaty on transit of the strait is no longer valid since the Crimea became part of Russia in March 2014.
The situation has some parallels to the build-up of tension between Russia and the Republic of Georgia, which led to the August 2008 conflict. Putin has a habit of taking provocative action before meetings with western leaders, in this case, the G20 in Buenos Aires. Putin prefers to negotiate from a position of perceived strength, in this case, ‘I have the ships and sailors in my custody’. Putin is also acutely aware of the weakened position of the leaders of the west: Trump now has a divided Congress and has a weaker position after the midterm elections, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is on her way out and is currently the leader of a very fragile coalition, British Prime Minister Teresa May faces a tough Brexit test, French President Emmanuel Macron is dealing with serious civil unrest.
The Cipher Brief: National Security Advisor John Bolton has said President Trump will meet with President Putin to discuss security issues at the G20 Summit in Argentina. What SHOULD be the next steps taken by the U.S. over this incident? There has been talk of increased sanctions and Secretary Pompeo has urged the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to engage directly to resolve it. Is that enough?
Dannenberg: There is no question Putin picked a week before the G20 for this provocation and the U.S. should be making a serious effort to censure Putin at that meeting, if not disinvite him. The U.S. should lead an effort to dramatically increase economic sanctions on Russia, including targeting Russia’s energy and financial sectors. The U.S. should also be moving to expand arms sales to the Ukraine beyond the current Javelin anti-tank missiles and non-lethal assistance. Serious consideration should be given to renewing discussion of the Ukraine’s accession to NATO—something Putin definitely does not want. The U.S. should also publicly call for restraint on the part of the Ukraine, to ensure there is not a military response to Sunday’s provocation. It is unwise to give Putin an excuse for even more aggression against the Ukraine.
The Cipher Brief: How might this continue to escalate if both leaders are not able to de-escalate?
Dannenberg: The parallel with Georgia in 2008 is instructive. Then-Georgian President Mikhail Saakhishvili clearly misunderstood the level of support he could expect from the U.S. and the West as he pushed back on Russian encroachment on Georgia from the Russian “puppet” republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The result was a mismatch between the Russian and Georgian militaries nearly resulting in the Russian occupation of Tbilisi. The same could easily happen now between Russia and the Ukraine. Poroshenko is already upset about the recent “elections” in the Don Basin republics and may want to now appear tough in the run up to his re-election in March 2019. Kiev needs to be very careful in its response to this incident. There is no stomach in the West for a land conflict in Eastern Europe at the moment.
The Cipher Brief: What else should we be considering and/or learning from this latest engagement?
Dannenberg: Putin has basically given up any hope of improvement in relations with the U.S. and the West and instead has embarked upon a course of escalation using his intelligence services and cyber capability as the spear. We should recognize Putin’s commitment to escalation and respond with comprehensive efforts to weaken Russia’s already fragile economy to undermine public support for Putin’s path of confrontation. We should shut down Russia’s most accessible propaganda medium, RT, and aggressively target the wealth of Putin and those in his entourage and the oligarch community that supports the Putin regime. The sooner we recognize the commitment Putin has made to confrontation and the depth of his effort to undermine western societies, the better.
Coming later today in The Cipher Brief: Putin’s Dangerous Game in Ukraine
