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Putin's Propaganda in High Gear Over Ukraine
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
November 17, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Flogged by the U.S. and Europe over his
crypto-war in Ukraine, 62-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin bolted the
G20 in Brisbane, Australian, early heading back to Moscow triumphant. While Russia remains as isolated as
the Cold War, Putin showed no signs to buckling to Western pressure over
Ukraine. Western countries want
Putin out of Southeaster Ukraine where unmarked Russian troops lend military
backing to pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. Despite punitive economic sanctions harming the Russian economy, Putin remains defiant as
he did six-years before when he invaded Georgia, keeping Southeastern Ukraine in
the Russian orbit. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned Russia of “all-out” war, knowing full-well he
lacks the military resources, and, more importantly, the national will to evict
Russia from sovereign Ukrainian territory.
When Putin seized Crimea March 1, Kiev could only sit idly by while Putin
flexed Russian military muscle. No
one in the U.S. or NATO has a credible military response—nor the stomach—to
confront Putin’s army in Ukraine or elsewhere in the Russian orbit. Imposing economic sanctions and
isolating Moscow prompted German Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel, currently
sharing power with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, opposed more sanctions
against Russia. Gabriel’s Social
Democratic Party has strong ties to German industry, potentially harmed if Putin
turns off the energy spigot to Berlin.
Returning to Moscow a hero, Putin, dodged more sanctions when EU foreign
ministers voted against more sanctions.
What’s wrong with the picture from Brisbane is that the U.S., EU and NATO
look weaker, essentially Finlandized or acquiescing to Russian power.
Despite the hazing Putin received over Ukraine at the G20, Russian media
insisted President Barack Obama was the one isolated. Obama’s the latest U.S. leader to be
portrayed as trying to conquer the Russian empire. Russian government propagandist
journalist Dmitry Kiselyov said the U.S. “uni-polar” was dead, asking whether or
not Obama sought to destroy Russia. “The main reason for his calmness is that the Russian president realized the United
States, despite the current administration’s efforts, is steering the ship of
Western civilization onto the reef called China and can’t change course,” said
Kiselyov, showing the farfetched propaganda sent to the Russian people. Russia’s state-run media can’t admit
that it was Putin’s problems with the EU, not the U.S, that left him so isolated
at the G20. Putin’s goal in
Southeastern Ukraine is a de facto annexation of the region for Moscow.
Voting to hold off on more sanctions today, Putin returns to Moscow more
powerful than before. No one in
U.S. or Europe has yet to check Putin’s unbridled power. Like former Georgian President
Mikheil Saashashvili in 2008, Poroshenko lacks the military firepower to defend
Urkaine from Putin’s onslaught.
European foreign ministers in holding off on more sanctions give Putin a green
light to take whatever he wants in Ukraine or beyond. “I think in this case the sign was
Putin plans to behave in Ukraine as he thinks is necessary, not as the G20
leaders expect him to,” said Russian political commentator Georgy Satarov, a
former advisor to the late Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Putin sees backing pro-Russian
separatists in Ukraine as needed to hold the line against Western intrusion in
the region. He criticizes the West
for meddling in Russia’s backyard.
Putin’s tightly controlled state media has the Russian public believing
Obama and the U.S. is trying to destroy Russia.
State media rarely criticizes the EU, despite implementing punitive
economic sanctions for annexing Crimea March 1.
“Ukraine is an independent, free and sovereign state,” said Putin,
showing the kind of twisted propaganda that belies Russian troops and military
hardware on Ukrainian soil. While
Putin talks of an independent Ukraine, he doesn’t see Crimea or Southeastern
Ukraine fitting into the new sovereign plan.
Merkel sees in Putin the same fanaticism that divided Berlin after the
fall of Hitler’s Third Reich. “Who
would have thought that 25-tyears after the fall of the Berlin Wall, after the
end of the Cold War and the end of the world’s separation into two blocks,
something like this could have happened in the middle of Europe,” said Merkel.
Voting in Brussels to hold off on more economic sanctions, EU foreign
ministers gave Putin a green light to annex Southeastern Ukaine. Putin knows Porshenko bluster about “all-out” war doesn’t match the reality of a military
in shambles. There’s little the U.S. or EU can do short of confronting Russian
troops in Ukraine. Because of energy dependence, there’s little U.S., EU or NATO is prepared to do to defend
of Ukraine. “Old ways of thinking
in spheres of influence, which spurn international law, must not become
accepted,” said Merkel, know there’s no stomach in the EU or NATO to confront
Putin. Putin spoke volumes when he
said he wouldn’t let Kiev annihilate pro-Russian separatists. Regardless of the economic fallout
on Russia, Putin’s prepared to do in Southeastern Ukraine what he did in Georgia
in 2008. No one in the U.S., EU or
NATO know how to stop Putin.
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