Taking back control of escalation from Putin

Since the beginning of the crisis, which has become war, in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has constantly managed to maintain control of the escalation, both political and above all military. Opposite, the democracies, on the defensive, have continued to suffer, confined to the role of spectators of their own history.

This war could certainly have been avoided if the negotiation had taken place in time, organizing an orderly neutralization of Ukraine while respecting its borders. I was myself publicly in favor of such a negotiation, and I regretted, in these very columns, that it could not take place because of the position chosen by Washington: that of the "open door" to NATO.

 By dismissing a status of neutrality for Ukraine like Austria or Finland (a status now requested by Zelinsky!), while indicating in advance that it would not intervene in a conflict that it announced itself as imminent, the Biden Administration powerfully contributed to this disaster: Putin could make "his" war without risk of external interference, except economic sanctions, to which he had been accustomed anyway for years …

But now a total war is engaged, which risks degenerating at any time, because the war goes badly for the aggressor. Putin's push remains continuous, a push that only economic sanctions, incomplete moreover, and a few arms deliveries, fail to stop.

Under these conditions, and while an exceptional NATO summit is to be held this week, in the presence of Biden, it is imperative for Westerners to resolve to finally adopt a strategy worthy of the name: block Putin, denying him control of the escalation.

1- Putin controls the escalation since the beginning of the crisis.

It is first of all the ultimatum of December 15, 2021, four months to the day after the American stampede in Kabul. Putin demands the immediate neutralization of Ukraine, a halt to NATO's eastward expansion, and the withdrawal of Western forces deployed on Russia's borders. In response, Washington and its allies signaled that they were open to arms control negotiations. But on the crucial question of the status of Ukraine and the extension of NATO, they have chosen the worst possible position: no negotiation, no guarantee of security extended to Ukraine.

This first setback, consecrated during the Munich security conference on February 22 and 23, 2022, in the presence of the highest American authorities (Vice President Kamala Harris was on site), and NATO, convinced Putin that he could obtain by force what he would not obtain by negotiation, without the risk of seeing the Allies come to the rescue of Ukraine.

The very next day, February 24, the invasion began…

2- The control of the escalation then continued in the course of the war.

Everyone now knows that the lightning offensive initially planned failed: kyiv could not be taken quickly, the Ukrainian people and their army resisted, and President Zelensky is still in place, even winning the communication war against Moscow.

 Putin therefore resolved himself to a long war, and on February 27, three days after the start of his invasion, he for the first time raised the threat of a nuclear escalation to ensure that the West would not intervene. not. His threats have been repeated many times since, even causing a strong wave of concern in the West and the run on iodine pills in Poland and elsewhere…

It is therefore a war of terror comparable to Hitler's Blitz against London, which has been underway for a fortnight against very many Ukrainian localities. The infrastructures and the population are directly targeted: the goal being to break the will of resistance of the Ukrainians and thus bring about the collapse of the country. This strategy, carried out by means of artillery, missiles and aviation, takes place without interference from the West, despite calls for help from the Ukrainians. The pressing and repeated request for a no-fly zone over Ukraine having been formally dismissed by the West.

The all-out war now led by Putin has led to the exodus of 3,000,000 Ukrainian civilians and several thousand casualties among the civilian population.

Gradually the noose is closing around the main Ukrainian agglomerations, including the capital.

At this point Putin still refuses any ceasefire, much less a negotiated solution. He is waiting for the country to collapse in order to impose a settlement on his own terms: regime change in kyiv, neutralization of the country, and probably also annexation of the southern and eastern part of Ukraine, starting with the entire northern shore of the Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Azov.

Meanwhile, in Mariupol as yesterday in Syria, Putin and Lavrov employ the blackmail of the humanitarian corridors with absolute cynicism, taking hostage the besieged civilian populations.

3- Despite the sanctions, Putin retains control of the political and economic escalation.

Faced with such abuses, pushed by their public opinion, Westerners have taken unprecedented financial sanctions, and weapons have been delivered to Ukrainian fighters.

But here again the results are mixed: the political isolation, apparently successful in the vote of the United Nations General Assembly due to the number of States condemning Russia, is only partial since half of humanity with the China and India, but also the main Arab oil and gas producing countries, have chosen to abstain.

 Many of these sanctions, including symbolic ones, such as the closure of Western stores, McDonald's restaurants, are resented by the Russian population, who take this as an unfair punishment, so much so that at this stage, Putin's regime does not is in no way threatened. A good part of the population, subjected to constant propaganda and drastic limits on their freedom of expression, seems to be convinced that the Russian army is indeed fighting against “Nazism” in Ukraine.

More problematic is the fact that, if Washington decided without difficulty to embargo all imports of Russian oil (because these imports hardly count in the American energy mix), the Europeans themselves have not been able to take this type of decision. So much so that three weeks after the start of the war, the Europeans continue to finance it to the tune of at least 800 million dollars a day, to pay for their purchases of hydrocarbons and Russian gas. Gathered in Versailles, in what was to be a kind of great council of war, or at the very least the turning point of the great European awakening in the face of the perils of the hour, the Europeans were not able to interrupt this financing. Nor to make strong decisions. Thus, Germany could have reopened three nuclear power plants that it has just closed, Belgium also which recently closed a nuclear power plant, but these decisions were not taken for reasons of internal politics...

All in all, despite their scale, Western sanctions will therefore in no way be fatal for Russia, whose economic and financial relations are called upon to develop with other partners, starting with China, the great beneficiary of this war. Better still, the Russian counter-sanctions from space to agriculture threaten to have dreadful consequences for the countries concerned. Again, Putin somehow managed to maintain control of the escalation...

4- Control of escalation and arms deliveries.

The same goes for the arms deliveries announced from the start by the European Union, then by the United States.

Such deliveries obviously pose a problem, with NATO seeking to avoid being drawn into the conflict.

 This is why Borell's very premature announcement regarding the delivery of combat aircraft to Ukraine by the EU has remained a dead letter.

 As was, almost ridiculously, the American idea of ​​asking Poland to deliver its fleet of twenty aging Mig 27s to Ukraine. Not wanting to risk being drawn into the war, Warsaw initially refused, then sought to "wet" the Americans, by offering to ship its planes "free" to the main NATO base. in Germany, Rammstein, it is up to the Americans to then transport them to Ukraine…by flying over Germany…As it was foreseeable, the United States refused this proposal, which would have risked leading to a direct confrontation with Russia.

 This inglorious episode illustrates the dilemma of Westerners: how to help Ukraine without being drawn into the war?

In this affair, Putin could only conclude that Western deterrence now boiled down to a new doctrine, which one could ironically call that of the “hot potato”: no one willing to take the slightest risk.

 Once again taking advantage of this setback, the Russians carried out their threats on March 13, by very brutally striking the Ukrainian military installations located very close to the Polish border, used for the training of foreign volunteers and for the storage of weapons delivered by the Westerners. .

-5 The escalation to come: the chemical.

Even more worrying is the mounting Russian pressure on the biological and chemical weapons front. The campaign to denounce, including at the UN, alleged Ukrainian weapons production facilities.  Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons have no other purpose than to prepare international opinion for the use of chemical weapons by Russian forces.

 This scenario should be taken very seriously.

 In Syria, the Russians protected Assad when he used his chemical weapons in 2012-2013, in Ghouta, then in their presence, let these same weapons be used again in 2017 by their Syrian ally. Each time, the Russians initially denied the existence of chemical weapons, then when their use was demonstrated, they managed to offer the Americans a loophole in the form of an "agreement" providing for the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons, which allowed Obama, in 2013, not to enforce his famous "red line" on the use of these weapons.

It is unfortunately to be feared that if the Russian army were to get bogged down in a long fight in the Ukrainian cities, condemning it to suffer heavy losses, and to resort to the reinforcement of numerous conscripts to occupy these cities, the employment chemical weapons would then risk becoming the way to put an end to it as quickly as possible and to obtain the surrender of the Ukrainians.

If Putin had only a new version of the hot potato deterrent in front of him at this point, then there is reason to fear that this scenario will become a reality soon enough.

In other words we risk in the near future to come up against:

– either to repeated attacks on military installations on the borders of Poland and perhaps even in Poland itself, to interrupt the flow of Western arms deliveries;

- either, or even at the same time, a chemical attack against civilian populations in one or two large cities,

- or even a “demonstration” firing of a tactical nuclear weapon, in order to dissuade the NATO countries from coming to the aid of the Ukrainians…

6- Regain control of the escalation.

It is to be feared that given the weaknesses of Western reactions so far, Putin will continue unperturbed with his conquest and destruction of Ukraine, including through the use of chemical weapons.

He will only back down and choose a diplomatic exit when the risk of an escalation seems real to him, endangering the very survival of his regime.

We must therefore now prepare ourselves for what we would do in this hypothesis.

To avoid being presented with a fait accompli, the best strategy would be to regain control of the escalation as quickly as possible. What happens:

1- By the immediate cessation of the financing of Putin's war, which implies the immediate total embargo on the imports of hydrocarbons and gas; only such a signal would show Putin a real determination on our part.

2- the solemn reminder to the UN, to the Security Council and to the General Assembly, of the principle of the absolute prohibition of the use of chemical weapons;

This in order to tell him of the crossing of the chemical weapons threshold could not go unanswered;

3- in the event of an attack spilling over into the territory of NATO member states located in the immediate vicinity of Ukraine, the announcement in advance of a proportionate and immediate military response.

4- These measures would be accompanied by an offer of an immediate ceasefire, followed by negotiations concerning the status of Ukraine: neutrality against withdrawal of Russian forces and respect for borders.