BERLIN — Chalk another one up for Vlad.
By the time Western officials had figured out what and where the Kerch Strait was, the Russian leader had sewn up his naval operation, taking around two dozen Ukrainian sailors prisoner (shooting and wounding at least three of them), and impounded their vessels. Not bad for a Sunday outing.
Meanwhile, over in the EU cocoon, Germans debated whether the United Nations refugee compact would be legally binding and the French squabbled over the price of gasoline. And the U.S.? Lost somewhere in Trumpland.
In case there were any lingering doubts over the efficacy of Western efforts to rein in Russia, Moscow’s latest aggression made it pretty clear that the attempts to coax Vladimir Putin into de-escalating the confrontation with Ukraine have failed. No degree of sanctions, German-led “dialogue,” or even genuflection has made much of an impression on the Russian leader.
Arguably, the situation has gotten worse; the more brazen Putin becomes, the more helpless the West appears.
“To be perfectly honest, we don’t have many options,” a senior European official said. “We don’t want to risk war, but Putin is already waging one. That makes us look weak.”
Given Europe’s dearth of options, its leaders revert to hackneyed pronouncements about the importance of dialogue and, as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas put it, “de-escalation on both sides.”
Though Maas, who has been more critical of Russia than his recent predecessors, also called on Moscow to end its blockade, he implied that both parties are somehow to blame.
The notion that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the diplomatic equivalent of a he-said-she-said spat is a narrative often reflected in European media coverage, especially in Germany. “Russia accuses Ukraine of provocation,” read a headline on Spiegel Online, one of Germany’s most-read news portals, the morning after the attack.
The facts tell another story.
Unless one accepts that Crimea is now Russian sovereign territory, there’s no basis for the claim that the Ukrainian vessels were in Russian territorial waters.
If, as Ukrainian officials and Western diplomats claim, the captured ships were heading back to their port in Odessa, having failed to pass through the Kerch Strait because of the Russian blockade, Moscow’s justification for the attack would be even less convincing.
While the details of such confrontations are often difficult to discern in the fog of the moment, the fecklessness of Europe’s response is remarkable, even by its admittedly modest standards.
“Developments on Azov Sea are unacceptable,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said via Twitter, nearly a full day after the events transpired.
Jean-Claude Juncker, who earlier this year called for an end to “Russia-bashing,” has so far been silent.
What about Europe’s most powerful leader?
“The chancellor stressed the necessity of de-escalation and dialogue,” Angela Merkel’s spokesman said after the German leader spoke to Putin on the phone.
As for the Russian leader, his spokesman said he would comment “when he deems it necessary.”
But what is there left to say? After all, Putin has achieved his goals.
Sunday’s showdown wasn’t random, it was the culmination of a yearslong strategy to assert control over the Azov Sea, a process that the West largely ignored. Remember the high-level outrage over Russia’s construction of a bridge over the Kerch Strait, despite Ukrainian protests that it would further constrict trade and access to Mariupol, a regional hub in the east of the country? No? That might be because there was none.
So Putin continued to push the limits, harassing Ukrainian ships through the strait, while quadrupling the size of Russian naval forces in the area.
Again, nary a peep from the West.
Now, Russia has created facts on the ground that Europe, in typical knee-jerk fashion, wants to counter with more dialogue. French and German officials have suggested a meeting in the “Normandy format,” the very same four-way talks between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany that have failed for years to yield any progress.
At a gathering of European foreign policy and security officials in Berlin this week attended by Maas, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and other senior figures, much of the discussion revolved around the recent buzz over a “European army.”
Even for those unnerved by the fraying transatlantic relationship and convinced Europe needs to invest more in its security, the news from the Azov Sea offered a jarring reality check.
“At times like this, I’m happy we don’t have a European army,” a German official said. “Putin has proved that he’s in control.”
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