Now that the first step toward a negotiated settlement of the Russo-Ukrainian war may have been reached in Minsk, the question of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reliability as a negotiating partner should be on everyone’s mind.
In a word, can he be trusted with anything? The answer, unfortunately, is no—for several important reasons.
First, by invading and annexing the Crimea, Putin violated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, in which Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom agreed to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine’s adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Putin’s subsequent justification—that the Maidan Revolution ushered in a new Ukrainian state that was not a signatory of the memorandum—was a preposterous claim that, if generalized, would subvert every treaty ever signed. Subsequently, Putin also violated the April 17th Geneva accords and the September 5th Minsk Protocol, both of which outlined specific steps toward defusing the conflict.
Second, by instigating and arming the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine, as well as by deploying thousands of regular Russian troops in the occupied Donbas enclave (whose presence there he continues to deny despite indisputable photographic evidence), Putin has launched a unilateral attack against a neighboring country, thereby violating the spirit and letter of every post–World War II agreement on international norms.
Third, Putin has shown himself to be in thrall to an imperial Russian ideology that clouds his ability to make rational judgments about Russia’s genuine interests. He has repeatedly justified the Crimean annexation in terms of the peninsula’s supposed “sacredness” to Russia and centrality to Russian perceptions of grandeur. In fact, the adventure—along with the subsequent invasion of eastern Donbas—has led to international condemnation and isolation and crippling sanctions that have contributed dramatically to Russia’s current economic free fall. Putin wants Ukraine to remain in Russia’s orbit. Yet, by waging a war of aggression in the Donbas, he has assured and accelerated Kyiv’s westward movement and taken Ukraine-Russia relations to their lowest point in memory. Just a year ago, Ukraine was well on the way to becoming a Russian vassal state with no army, a confused identity, and an unreformed economy. Today, thanks to Putin, Ukraine is an independent state with a functioning army, a reforming economy, and a strong sense of national identity that had eluded the population until the Kremlin and its proxies decided to wage war.
How should Kyiv and the West stop the fighting in eastern Ukraine, if the other side is led by a man who is mendacious, untrustworthy, and consumed by ideology?
The West’s current set of approaches—negotiations and sanctions—must be supplemented with a third, one whose effectiveness does not depend on the trustworthiness of Putin: containment. Negotiations with Putin should be pursued, even though no document that Putin signs will be meaningful—or more meaningful than the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Sanctions should be maintained and, possibly, even increased, but they will not soon force the hand of a leader whose strategic priorities are driven by an obsession with an ideology that blinds him from his self-interests. If and when sanctions and continued low energy prices bring the Russian economy to a standstill, even Putin may see that he’s driven Russia to the brink of collapse, but that could take years.
That leaves only one option: containment. The Romans built fortifications along sections of their boundary with the barbarians. The Chinese built the Great Wall. The West should try to keep Putin east of Ukraine and Belarus, while Kyiv should keep the Donbas enclave east of Ukraine.
The West should treat Ukraine as the contemporary equivalent of West Germany and help transform it into a stable, secure, democratic, and prosperous state. That means, above all, economic and military assistance. A more ambitious form of containment would regard Belarus—whose authoritarian president has recently changed his country’s course from its formerly pro-Russian direction to a more pro-Ukrainian and pro-Western direction—as another key state in need of Western aid.
Ukraine should pursue containment vis-à-vis the separatist Donbas enclave that, according to the February 12th Minsk agreement, is supposed to enjoy a level of autonomy within Ukraine. Personally, I would have preferred a sanctioned separation of this corrupt and backward region, but since Kyiv agreed to make an effort at reintegration, so be it. But, in that case, Kyiv must now work to restrict the nefarious influence the region will otherwise have on the rest of Ukraine and its efforts to establish a politically and economically reformed and coherent society. Let the separatists have all the autonomy they want. Let them misrule the place to their hearts’ content. In return, let them have as little influence on Ukraine’s movement toward democracy, the market, the West, and the world. Squaring that circle will be hard, but Kyiv may be able to offer maximal autonomy in exchange for maximal non-interference. And if, at some point in the future, Ukraine’s reactionary “Deep South” chooses to separate, Ukraine should oblige.
Will containment resolve the problem of Russia’s illegal annexation of the Crimea or bring a quick end to Putin’s imperialism? No, but it will throw a wrench into Putin’s expansionist designs and thereby weaken his claim to being Russia’s savior. By undermining his legitimacy, containment will accelerate the decay of the Putin regime and its ability to be a bull in Europe’s china shop. In time, the result may even be a Russia that is once again willing to be a fully respected member of the international community.
