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Putin will capitalize on Western divisions, says Fiona Hill
“To deal with Putin, we have to have collective, coherent, concerted pushback,” Fiona Hill said in January. The former Director of European and Russian Affairs at the National Security Council under President Donald Trump warned that Vladimir Putin would likely exploit the political climate in America and tensions between allies to his advantage. Now would be the moment to act, she added, citing that the stage has been set for Putin to exert “coercive diplomacy” to mix things up to see what he can get out of America’s increasingly weak hand.
Watch all of Hill's interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World: American strife: Will US democracy survive? Fiona Hill explains post-Jan 6 stakes
U.S. army instructor from the Joint Multinational Training Group trains Ukrainian service members to operate with M141 Bunker Defeat Munition (SMAW-D) grenade launcher, supplied by the United States.
What We’re Watching: US troops in Eastern Europe, Peru government reshuffle, Denmark lifts COVID restrictions
US deploys troops to Eastern Europe. A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the US of “ignoring” Kremlin demands to limit NATO further expansion to the East, the White House sent more than 3,000 troops to alliance members Germany, Poland, and Romania. This was in addition to an order for 8,500 US troops to be ready to deploy to Eastern Europe on short notice. With Russia continuing to mass more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, Moscow and Washington have been at loggerheads in diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis, raising fears of war. Russia wants guarantees that NATO will not expand further East into what the Kremlin sees as its sphere of influence. But the West refuses to accept that demand, offering instead to commit only to limits on weapons deployments in Eastern Europe. It’s worth noting that none of the 3,000 US troops are being sent to Ukraine — neither NATO nor the US have an appetite for sending troops there. But Putin, it seems, just might …
Is it time to ease COVID restrictions? Denmark has become the first EU country to lift all pandemic-related restrictions, noting that COVID-19 can no longer be considered a “socially critical sickness.” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said masks and “green passes” will no longer be required in public places, but she noted that this could change if new variants emerge. This development comes as Denmark is recording one of the highest per capita COVID caseloads in the world, though hospitalizations and deaths remain low because most of the population – just over 80%, according to Our World in Data – is vaccinated. Other EU countries are making similar moves: France is lifting some restrictions, though indoor mask requirements and vaccine mandates remain, and the changes come despite still-high cases and deaths. Finland is on a similar trajectory. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has warned countries not to prematurely “declare victory” over the virus, saying that COVID “continues to evolve.”
Peruvian president reshuffles Cabinet … again. Pedro Castillo has switched up his cabinet for the third time in six months, replacing half of its 18 members, including the finance minister and prime minister. The move came after Peru’s interior minister resigned late last week, accusing the president of thwarting efforts to tackle corruption. The folksy Castillo — a former rural schoolteacher who campaigned on horseback with a gigantic pencil — rode to an election win last year on promises of tackling corruption. But he has struggled to form a working relationship with non-leftist parties, and his ministers keep getting caught up in scandals. A recent crime wave in the capital, Lima, and last month’s disastrous oil spill at the country’s largest refinery haven’t helped. The latest reshuffle raises questions about whether Castillo can see out his term. The Peruvian presidency is a famously fickle post — in 2019, a carousel of impeachments and resignations saw the country with three different presidents in a single month. Can Castillo stay in the saddle until the next election?
All eyes on Russia ahead of Putin-Xi meeting
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. Happy week. We are still in the thick of it when it comes to all things Russia. So let me jump right in.
Latest on the Russia front. Well, really, over the last six weeks, if you weren't paying attention to what people were saying and just what activities were going on on the ground, what you'd be seeing was steady escalation, more and more Russian troops with offensive capabilities to the front, both at the direct border with Ukraine, as well as now into Belarus as well, ostensibly for exercises, but we don't tend to see coincidences in this line of work.
And if the Russians wanted to engage in a full-scale invasion, they're not quite there yet, but they certainly will be by the time the Olympics are over. That's relevant, by the way, because there is this Olympics moratorium on fighting, which is at the United Nations, but which the Chinese actually not only co-sponsored, but actually drafted along with the United Nations leadership. And to the extent that President Putin cares at all about his relationship with China, and Beijing hosting the Olympics and Putin, traveling right over there, it is very, very, very hard to imagine that the Russians would engage in any direct military activities in Ukraine before the Olympics are over. And certainly not while Putin is over there in Beijing for the opening ceremony.
I feel fairly confident about that, which means there's still a few weeks for diplomacy to play out. There are still a few weeks for climb down, but to be clear, from the Russian side, everything points to escalation so far. From the Western side, there certainly lots of willingness to engage in diplomacy, but there also has been a strengthening of the expected deterrence if there is any form of an attack. That's come from the United States, come from the US allies. And most recently it's come also from the United Kingdom, the foreign secretary saying that there would be full sanctions readiness taken against not just people directly involved in making the calls, the orders on what would transpire in Ukraine, but anyone directly linked to the Kremlin. That means lots of oligarchs who park all sorts of cash and massive amounts of real estate holdings in the United Kingdom. Something that I'm very skeptical that the Brits would actually do.
It's interesting. I mean, Navalny, the opposition leader at Russia presently in jail, and others have been calling after the UK government to go after oligarch money forever. It's never happened. I think that the UK is concerned about strengthening, what it would mean, they want to strengthen anti money laundering rules, but that seizing oligarch assets would send very strong messages to all sorts of strong men and crooks and cronies across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. And London makes an enormous amount of money off of that. I mean, first you do Brexit, and then you go after all of your oligarchs from sort of everywhere internationally? There are sort of all sorts of willingness to punch yourself in the face if you're UK leadership in recent years, but this I think is a step too far.
I do think the UK though wants to signal that they are a hundred percent aligned with the United States, especially in a post Brexit environment. That they are more reliable. And so I think a harder line UK posture fits in with that. That's not as much as the headlines are telling you, but generally speaking, yeah, I think there's been a lot more NATO alignment, more US-Europe alignment on policies vis-à-vis the Russians in the last couple of weeks.
That's interesting in so far as it should make it a little bit less likely that Putin engages even in relatively limited military incursions into Ukraine, but it also means the implications of such strikes if they were to occur, and there's still a really good chance they happen, would be much more dangerous. Escalation from the West, and then further cycles, further spiral that gets us into major power conflict, not World War III, but nonetheless, real knock-on implications for countries all over the world, which is why we're spending so much time on this.
The other thing I would pay attention to is the President Putin, President Xi summit coming at the end of this week. It's probably the most important geopolitical summit we've had in years in terms of the implications of what happens if it goes really well, or if it doesn't go so well. It's pretty clear that this relationship is moving from tactical to strategic. It's moving towards a real alliance. And I say that in part, because both sides feel for different reasons like they're being backed into a corner. President Xi is looking for more friends. He's of course lost the Indian government in a dramatic way through his own escalation over the last couple of years. There's been more isolation, more domestic focus in China with COVID. And there's more of a feeling that the United States is playing a more hard-line policy that is unfixable to a degree. And so, if that's the case, a closer relationship with Russia makes more sense.
Putin, of course, it's more obvious. He sees NATO as more strongly arrayed against them. He's deeply unhappy with the geopolitical status quo in Europe. He sees no way of opening up, unless there's a surprising diplomatic breakthrough. He sees that democratic force is increasingly arrayed against him and a threat towards him. He's seen it in Belarus. He saw it even in Kazakhstan. He's seen it in Moldova. He's seen in Armenia. He's seen in Georgia. And now potentially he has to be worried about that in Russia longer term too. So, who you're going to work with? You're going to work with the Chinese.
In that regard, I think it's a very, very important meeting. I would say that while the relationship feels more strategic, it's not that the Chinese are going to offer that much, at least in the near term to the Russians economically. I mean, for example, they don't have the gas pipeline infrastructure. So if the Russians are cutting off a gas to Europe, it's not like the Chinese can make that up. Furthermore, they haven't invested all that much in Russia economically over the past years. They don't have an awful lot of exposure to help sink or float the Russian economy. But diplomatically, I think it's very important.
In this regard, I do think that the announcement that the United States is bringing this issue to the United Nation Security Council, on balance I think is a mistake. The Biden administration has done a really solid job in engaging in an enormous amount of proactive diplomacy with all of the NATO allies and have gotten them to a more unified position on Russia and Ukraine, both in terms of military support for the Ukrainians, as well as direct consequences, which they would all put towards the Russians if there was either a broad invasion or a more limited incursion.
That's all in favor of American national security interest and policy, but the Chinese have stayed out of this, mostly, so far. The Russians want to bring them in. We'll see how far that goes but having a big conversation at the security council that tries to focus in international spotlight on Russia-Ukraine, makes it more likely that the Chinese will veto. That the Chinese publicly will be more aligned with the Russians. And as the Americans, why would you want to make the Chinese take that kind of a decision? I would say you don't. You don't want to use your capital on getting them to abstain, which is something that frankly isn't all that important or useful to the United States. And you certainly don't want to risk the likelihood that they are publicly on board with the Russians. The same Chinese that have opposed intervention into sovereign countries policies. And of course, they said very little after the Russians did very differently with Crimea and the Donbas. Why would you push them in that direction?
So I see that as a mistake. We'll see where that goes today, tomorrow, but that's it for me. Hope everyone's well, and I'll talk to y'all real soon.
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Putin has a “noose” around Ukraine, says Russia analyst Alina Polyakova
What’s going on in Vladimir Putin’s mind? That’s the million-dollar question.
Ukraine and Russia analyst Alina Polyakova doesn’t think it’s anything good.
Russia's president, she says, has put a “noose” around Ukraine with a troop build-up along the border that could spell invasion in the near term. The US has led an effort to deescalate the situation through diplomacy.
For Polyakova, the Russians have responded with nothing but aggressive language and tactics. Putin’s demands, she believes, are impossible to meet, which signals he's already made up his mind.
“They made really unrealistic demands, which signals to me they weren't interested in diplomacy in the first place, and they really had a plan for more military aggression rather than even trying the diplomatic approach.”
Watch her interview with Ian Bremmer on the upcoming episode of GZERO World.
Is the West united against Russia? Sort of.
Western powers claim that they present a united front against the Kremlin’s current threats in Ukraine. But clearly there are reasons for doubt. President Joe Biden provided more last week when he appeared to question whether NATO would in fact act with “total unity” if Vladimir Putin orders Russian troops across the Ukrainian border.
Do Western allies really agree on a common approach to keeping Russia out of Ukraine? What are the major points of contention among them?
On the economic front, the US is prepared to go big: the White House has been pushing for tougher economic sanctions if the Kremlin encroaches on Ukraine’s sovereignty, including by cracking down on both Russian financial institutions and international entities that lend Russia money. It also has more than 8,500 troops ready to move into Eastern Europe if Russia escalates.
But Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas is undermining efforts to present a united Western front against Russian aggression.
Germany. While some Western governments have sent defensive arms to Ukraine, Berlin has so far refused. It argues that arming Kyiv would encourage both Ukraine and Russia to escalate the conflict. Germany is not only reluctant to send weapons to Ukraine, but it has also scuttled attempts by NATO states, like Estonia, to deliver German-made arms to Ukraine. (Berlin retains some authorization rights over exports of their weapons.) Germany has also refused to back a proposal to cut Moscow off from the global electronic-payment system known as SWIFT.
Facing criticism, Germany’s new government has said that the country’s reluctance to arm the Ukrainians is in part the result of its pacifist foreign policy – an approach required by Germany’s militarist past. But analysts say that German reliance on Russian natural gas – which accounts for half of all its gas imports – better explains Berlin’s hesitancy to draw the Kremlin’s ire.
France. French President Emmanuel Macron is capitalizing on the sense of urgency – and division – to assert himself as Angela Merkel’s replacement as the leader of Europe. Macron has been talking tough on Russia – saying preemptive sanctions are on the table to deter a Russian incursion – while also calling for more diplomacy. Moreover, Macron, who has long advocated for European strategic autonomy, has called for a united Europe to engage with Russia separately from the broader US-NATO dialogue. (On Wednesday, Paris is hosting a group of Ukrainian, Russian, French, and German officials to try to chart a path forward.)
The UK. London has traditionally positioned itself as a “bridge nation” between the European Union and the United States, particularly when US presidents and European leaders have clashed on big geopolitical issues. Though this dynamic has changed since Britain left the EU, the UK is still a powerful NATO player with a lot of strategic leverage. As Putin continues to build up Russia’s military presence on the Ukrainian border, London has aligned closely with Washington, sending more than 2,000 short-range anti-tank missiles to Ukraine in recent days and calling for an “unprecedented package of sanctions.” Indeed, the stakes are lower for London, which gets most of its natural gas imports from Qatar and the US.
The Qatari wildcard. The Biden administration is reportedly in talks with the Qataris, global liquified natural gas heavyweights, to increase supplies to Europe in the event that Russia invades Ukraine.
However, rerouting supply routes is no small feat, particularly because more than 80 percent of Qatari gas is currently tied up in contracts with Asian states. But Eurasia Group analyst Raad Alkadiri says the US plan could work, particularly if it means the Qataris get premium prices for their exports and get to play a more consequential role in geopolitics. Still, Europe is already facing tight gas markets, and it needs to ensure available and secure supplies. At the moment, a lot of it comes from Russia.
In sum, the leaders of NATO countries will continue to insist that they speak with a single voice on questions of Ukraine’s sovereignty and the consequences of potential Russian aggression. But Vladimir Putin has good reason to wonder whether that’s true.What would a Russian invasion of Ukraine actually look like?
No one knows whether Russian President Vladimir Putin plans on invading Ukraine. But the president of the United States sure seems to think this is a real possibility, saying Wednesday that Putin will likely "move in" in the near term. Biden, prone to political gaffes, was then forced to awkwardly walk back comments that Russia would face milder consequences from the West in the event of a "minor incursion."
The timing of this blunder is... not great. It comes just as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepares to meet his Russian counterpart on Friday in hopes of lowering the temperature after recent diplomatic efforts in Geneva were deemed a failure by Moscow.
Indeed, with the Kremlin having amassed at least 100,000 troops surrounding Ukraine on three sides, the growing threat is impossible to ignore. So what would a Russian military offensive into Ukraine actually look like, and how might the West respond?
How far might Putin go?
Most analysts agree that it’s extremely unlikely that Putin will launch a wholesale invasion of Ukraine, which, given the immediate expense and likely Western response, would prove a very costly exercise that could push Russia into recession. Indeed, a full-scale occupation would also be a hard sell to the Russian public, because large numbers of Russians troops would return home in body bags. Putin knows that a Ukrainian insurgency in urban areas could drag on for a long time, leading to a mounting death toll.
If Russian forces do advance further into Ukraine, they could annex the Donbas region already held by Russian separatists and seize adjacent territory to create a buffer. But this would come with serious economic consequences for Russia, which would then have to provide basic services for millions of poor residents who live in its newly acquired territory.
And even a limited Russian offensive could lead to a significant refugee crisis, as was the case in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, displacing about 1.4 million people. This time, many Ukrainians might try to cross into Russia or flee to nearby states like Poland and Belarus, creating a refugee crisis that reverberates through Eastern and Central Europe. Though this would mainly be a problem for the European Union, Putin can predict the potential diplomatic and geopolitical consequences for Russia.
What would Washington do about it?
The Biden administration has made clear that it will not send American troops to defend Ukraine, which is not a NATO ally, but would impose fresh — and harsher – economic sanctions to punish the Kremlin. Unlike in the past when Washington has mainly targeted Russian oligarchs, sanctioning Russian financial institutions and sovereign debt — which could include all international entities that lend Russia money – is also on the table.
But in order to really make Moscow hurt, Washington needs the Europeans to match the sweeping sanctions it has floated (about one-third of Russia’s current reserves are in euros). Indeed, Biden reiterated this Wednesday: "I’ve got to make sure everybody’s on the same page as we move along.” But currently, Europe, which imports 45 percent of its gas from Russia, does not seem to be in lockstep with Washington. Moscow could cut off crucial supplies during a frigid winter (it wouldn’t be the first time that Putin has used natural gas supplies to create geopolitical leverage).
The stakes are particularly high for Germany, which is seeking to certify the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would keep even more natural gas flowing from Russia. The new leader of Germany’s opposition, and Angela Merkel’s successor as head of the CDU party, has rejected Washington’s proposal, saying that American threats to cut Russia off from the international banking system would do “a lot of harm” to Western economies.
The NATO equation
If tensions continue growing in the coming weeks, NATO could reinforce its troops in parts of the Baltic and Black Seas, which could lead to an (unwanted) military confrontation with Russia. Moreover, it’s likely that NATO and Washington will transport large supplies of Western-made weapons to help Ukrainians fight back against Russian attacks. Still, because Ukraine is not a NATO member state, the alliance is under no obligation to defend it — and most of the major decision-making will likely fall to Washington and Brussels. (Biden also came under fire this week for suggesting that NATO unity was a concern in dealing with Russian aggression.)
What’s more, a Russian attack could cause states like Finland and Sweden to rush to join the alliance – precisely the kind of additional NATO pressure at Russia’s borders that Putin claims threatens Russia’s security.
An invasion is hard to imagine. But so is the prospect of Vladimir Putin backing off without at least the appearance of a major concession from NATO.
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What We're Watching: US and Russia in Geneva, mass testing in Tianjin, a big loss for Venezuela's Maduro
US and Russia in Geneva. Senior US and Russian diplomats opened talks in Geneva on Monday, kicking off a round of discussions between Kremlin and Western officials across Europe over the next few days. Vladimir Putin wants Joe Biden and NATO leaders to redraw the security map of Europe by promising that Ukraine, Georgia, and other Russian neighbors will never join NATO and that the security alliance will not place missile system in Ukraine. That would, in effect, redivide Europe into Western and Russian spheres of influence. The Biden administration and NATO officials have said they will not allow Russia to veto NATO membership for countries that want to join. European leaders have warned the US to honor these promises, and Ukraine’s government is watching and waiting as an estimated 100,000 Russian troops remain poised near the Ukrainian border. Russia says it will pursue its aims by military means if necessary. NATO says it's ready to respond. The US says any Russian incursion into Ukraine will draw harsh sanctions against Russian and more supplies of Western weapons for Ukraine. Putin began this game of chicken, and we’ll be watching in coming weeks to see how far he wants to push it.
Mass COVID testing in Tianjin. About 40 residents of the Chinese city of Tianjin have tested positive for COVID and some have been infected with the omicron variant. In response, the city will test the city’s entire population of 14 million people. Travel restrictions have been imposed, and health officials are working to trace the path of infection and to isolate everyone who might have been exposed. About 30 neighborhoods in Tianjin have been locked down. The stakes are especially high from this outbreak because Tianjin is just 70 miles from Beijing, which will host the Winter Olympic Games next month. This large-scale response to a relatively small number of COVID cases isn’t new for China, which has so far avoided the large-scale outbreaks COVID has inflicted on much of the rest of the world. But after a similar lockdown in the city of Xian, home to 13 million people, created food shortages and imposed other hardships, officials in Tianjin must hope that all goes much more smoothly. And China now faces one of its greatest national challenges in coming months in holding to a “zero COVID” policy while avoiding public anger and managing economic fallout as the highly transmissible omicron variant poses new challenges.
A stinging loss for Maduro. Venezuela's opposition has beaten the ruling socialist party of President Nicolás Maduro in a governorship race in the agricultural province of Barinas. The triumph of Sergio Garrido, a little-known leader of a leftist political party, is important for several reasons. First, Barinas is the home state of socialist stalwart Hugo Chávez. For decades, the rural heartland and the birthplace of Chavismo, the former leader’s socialist political ideology, has been a ruling party stronghold. (Garrido’s challenger was in fact the late Chávez’s son-in-law.) Second, Sunday's vote was a rerun from a spate of crucial state-wide races in November where Maduro allies triumphed, winning 19 of 23 governorships. After an opposition candidate won a close vote in November, a Maduro-packed court ruled he was ineligible to serve and called for a redo. Yet, on Sunday the opposition won again with a new candidate. As the international community has mostly turned its back on Caracas after a rigged national vote in 2018, Maduro has tried to rebuild a sense of political legitimacy. But this hugely embarrassing upset suggests that even rural voters who have long supported the Chávez-Maduro political platform may be fed up with economic stagnation, corruption, and sky-high poverty.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukrainian actor and candidate in the upcoming presidential election, hosts a comedy show at a concert hall in Kiev, Ukraine February 22, 2019. Picture taken February 22, 2019.
What We're Watching: Ukraine laughs it all off
Ukraine's comedian cabinet. As Russia threatens to invade, Ukraine's president is looking to defend his homeland... with a bit of humor. In recent months Volodymyr Zelenskiy — who was a famous comedian before he entered politics, and even played the role of president in a TV series before his 2019 election — has hired members of his old comedy troupe to occupy top positions in his government, including intelligence chief. Zelenskiy is known to crack jokes in moments of extreme tension, and last summer mocked Vladimir Putin for writing a long essay describing Russia and Ukraine as a fraternal single nation. While supporters say Ukraine's president wants his former buddies because they'll be loyal, critics argue that the bad optics of a government being run by comedians who may be out of their depth when faced with a master political strategist like Vladimir Putin. With 100,000 Russian troops at their border, the last thing the Ukrainians need is a bad joke, or even worse an amateur mistake that Putin can use to his advantage.