GIVEN the significant setback events in Kiev represent for Moscow’s strategic ambitions, there can be little surprise about the way Russian President Vladimir Putin has now embarked on a tactic of deliberate sabre-rattling, ominously ordering 150,000 troops and hundreds of tanks and fighter aircraft into a state of “combat readiness” on Ukraine’s doorstep. It remains to be seen how this action plays out, but what is clear is that by making the move, Mr Putin has signalled his refusal to accept the reality of what has happened in Kiev and set out on a dangerous course that could lead to the break-up of Ukraine and what would inevitably be a catastrophic civil war.
Military intervention by Moscow would be a disaster. US President Barack Obama, in a swift response from Air Force One to news of Mr Putin’s “combat readiness” order, has gravely warned against “provocative rhetoric and actions” while NATO defence ministers have bluntly served notice the alliance will defend Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity”. However enraged he may feel with pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych ignominiously put to flight, Mr Putin would be foolish to ignore such warnings. Unpalatable though he clearly finds the prospect, he now has no alternative but to accept that Ukraine is inevitably headed towards signing the historic pact with the EU that lies at the heart of the anti-Moscow uprising. Moscow does have legitimate interests in Ukraine. In Russian-speaking Crimea, ceded by the old Soviet Union to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine in 1954, pro-Russian separatist demonstrators are doing battle with ethnic Tatars and pleading for intervention by Moscow to save them from the new authorities in Kiev.
Mr Putin is anxious about the fate of his hugely important Black Sea Fleet based at the Crimean port of Sebastapol but the forceful warning from Mr Obama and NATO’s defence ministers should leave the Russian President in no doubt about the dangers he risks if he launches any military intervention in Ukraine in the way he did in Georgia in 2008. With the pro-European mood running so strongly in Kiev, Moscow must accept it now has no practical alternative but to work with the new authorities in Ukraine, not against them. A provocative show of military might across the border, meant to intimidate, is not the answer.
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