The West should prepare for the worst from Putin

OTTAWA—You have to admire the courage of the Russians, mostly young people, going into the streets in towns and cities across their country to protest the invasion of Ukraine—facing certain arrest and brutal treatment at the hands of police. The protests, which led to several thousand Russians being detained in a few days, were the first anti-war demonstrations since Russia’s bloodthirsty, paranoid president unleashed an attack on the country next door in February. The protests were part of an important shift in the conditions surrounding Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine. With the volunteer Russian army being routed in places by the Ukrainians, Putin decided to take the risk of bringing the war home to the Russian people by introducing conscription. At least 300,000 Russian men are expected to be called up—some of them are the arrested anti-war demonstrators who are being handed call-up notices on the spot. Whether it will ultimately make any difference or not, the repressed, deliberately uninvolved Russian citizenry has shown some signs of concern after largely treating Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine for seven months as a remote spectator event. Large numbers of Russian men have been trying to leave to avoid being thrown into the war as cannon fodder, a sudden exodus that has been met by some of Russia’s neighbours with disdain. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis tweeted: “Russians should stay and fight. Against Putin.” His Latvian counterpart, Edgars Rinkevics, said the men trying to get out of Russia now don’t qualify for the kind of asylum afforded war resisters because they did nothing about the Ukraine invasion since February. Many “were fine with killing Ukrainians, they did not protest then,” he tweeted. All this reflects the changing nature of Putin's war. His military call-up, with its risk of public discord, and his sabre-rattling about nuclear weapons were no doubt a response to the setbacks of his military. But this escalation was also an indication that Putin doesn’t give a damn about Russians’ opinions, the fate of his army’s conscripts, or the growing international condemnation of his aggressive war and threats of worldwide annihilation. Having already personally created the worst global security crisis in 70 years, he seems ready to push his self-appointed war with the West into even more dangerous realms. Moreover, hopes generated at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan that China and India might exert some pressure on the Russian leader to end the war seem overly optimistic. During a meeting with Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised the world by sidestepping his country’s strict neutrality on Ukraine to criticize the Russian invasion, saying “today’s era is not of war,” and that Putin should “move onto a path of peace.” Similarly, Putin’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan was markedly different from their exuberant celebration of mutual support in February. Putin conceded that Xi had “questions and concerns” about Russia’s invasion of its neighbour. In the light of day, it appears the criticism by Modi and Xi, though an unexpected and seemingly positive development, was designed to address the two leaders’ own interests more than to shift the Russian war-lover’s stance on Ukraine. Xi is no doubt displeased that the attack dog he unleashed to front his long-term geopolitical challenge to U.S.-led liberal democracies has failed to uphold the image of the all-powerful strongman ruler, as personified by Putin and Xi. Plus, the bumbling, humiliating war conducted in Ukraine by Xi’s autocratic comrade comes at an inopportune time, with the Chinese leader soon facing a party vote on his leadership. Thus, Xi must have helped stage-manage Putin’s comment about China’s “questions and concerns” as a way to give Beijing a bit of diplomatic wiggle room and take the edge off anti-Chinese sentiment in Europe and elsewhere arising from Xi’s unwillingness to denounce the war. In the days after the SCO summit, there was certainly no evidence of any change in Beijing’s position on Ukraine at the UN, where China’s call for both sides to pursue a ceasefire continued to ignore the obvious cause of the conflict. As for India, Putin seemed unfazed by Modi’s attempt to put a sliver of light between New Delhi and Moscow on Ukraine, probably knowing that India was acting to protect its diplomatic flank with the U.S. and out of anxiety about Russia’s increasingly close ties to China, India’s feared regional rival. Altogether, this means Putin is not up against significant pressure from his key allies to temper his deluded attempt to destroy Ukraine in the name of revanchist Russian empire-building. So, the West must realize that Putin, desperate and increasingly cornered by much of mankind, is only likely to get more reckless and dangerous in the months ahead. Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times. The Hill Times