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Re: Ukraine Gas Deal
A Diplomatic Victory, and Affirmation, for Putin
The New York Times, by David M. Herszenhorn
MAY 15, 2015
MOSCOW — For Russia, victory came three days after Victory Day, in the form of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit this week to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. It was widely interpreted here as a signal of surrender by the Americans — an olive branch from President Obama, and an acknowledgment that Russia and its leader are simply too important to ignore.
Since the seizure of Crimea more than a year ago, Mr. Obama has worked aggressively to isolate Russia and its renegade president, Vladimir V. Putin, portraying him as a lawless bully atop an economically failing, increasingly irrelevant petrostate.
Mr. Obama led the charge by the West to punish Mr. Putin for his intervention in Ukraine, booting Russia from the Group of 8 economic powers, imposing harsh sanctions on some of Mr. Putin’s closest confidants and delivering financial and military assistance to the new Ukrainian government.
In recent months, however, Russia has not only weathered those attacks and levied painful countersanctions on America’s European allies, but has also proved stubbornly important on the world stage. That has been true especially in regard to Syria, where its proposal to confiscate chemical weapons has kept President Bashar al-Assad, a Kremlin ally, in power, and in the negotiations that secured a tentative deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Putin, who over 15 years as Russia’s paramount leader has consistently confounded his adversaries, be they foreign or domestic, once again seems to be emerging on top — if not as an outright winner in his most recent confrontation with the West, then certainly as a national hero, unbowed, firmly in control, and having surrendered nothing, especially not Crimea, his most coveted prize.
“Putin is looking pretty smart right now,” said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute, a Washington research group focused on Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Mr. Rojansky cautioned that Mr. Putin’s seemingly strengthened position could prove illusory. The economy is in recession and remains dangerously reliant on energy sources, and most analysts say the long-term outlook for oil and gas prices is bleak.
Although Mr. Putin may look smart at the moment, Mr. Rojansky said, none of this was necessarily by design, adding, “It doesn’t necessarily teach us anything fundamentally about him or how his system works.”
Nevertheless, with oil prices seeming at least to have stabilized after a modest recovery, and the ruble rebounding so strongly from a late autumn collapse that the Russian Central Bank has begun buying dollars to keep it from appreciating further, the Western economic sanctions seem to have fallen short.
Meanwhile, a cease-fire is mostly holding in eastern Ukraine, limiting casualties and vastly increasing pressure on President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine, who so far has been unable to deliver the increased autonomy for the pro-Russian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk that was called for in the truce agreement brokered by France and Germany.
The subtle shift by the Obama administration reflects a pragmatic recognition that the policy of isolating Russia, economically and diplomatically, is failing, analysts say.
Kerry lays a wreath at a World War II memorial in Sochi
Continued...
A Diplomatic Victory, and Affirmation, for Putin
The New York Times, by David M. Herszenhorn
MAY 15, 2015
MOSCOW — For Russia, victory came three days after Victory Day, in the form of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit this week to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. It was widely interpreted here as a signal of surrender by the Americans — an olive branch from President Obama, and an acknowledgment that Russia and its leader are simply too important to ignore.
Since the seizure of Crimea more than a year ago, Mr. Obama has worked aggressively to isolate Russia and its renegade president, Vladimir V. Putin, portraying him as a lawless bully atop an economically failing, increasingly irrelevant petrostate.
Mr. Obama led the charge by the West to punish Mr. Putin for his intervention in Ukraine, booting Russia from the Group of 8 economic powers, imposing harsh sanctions on some of Mr. Putin’s closest confidants and delivering financial and military assistance to the new Ukrainian government.
In recent months, however, Russia has not only weathered those attacks and levied painful countersanctions on America’s European allies, but has also proved stubbornly important on the world stage. That has been true especially in regard to Syria, where its proposal to confiscate chemical weapons has kept President Bashar al-Assad, a Kremlin ally, in power, and in the negotiations that secured a tentative deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Putin, who over 15 years as Russia’s paramount leader has consistently confounded his adversaries, be they foreign or domestic, once again seems to be emerging on top — if not as an outright winner in his most recent confrontation with the West, then certainly as a national hero, unbowed, firmly in control, and having surrendered nothing, especially not Crimea, his most coveted prize.
“Putin is looking pretty smart right now,” said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute, a Washington research group focused on Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Mr. Rojansky cautioned that Mr. Putin’s seemingly strengthened position could prove illusory. The economy is in recession and remains dangerously reliant on energy sources, and most analysts say the long-term outlook for oil and gas prices is bleak.
Although Mr. Putin may look smart at the moment, Mr. Rojansky said, none of this was necessarily by design, adding, “It doesn’t necessarily teach us anything fundamentally about him or how his system works.”
Nevertheless, with oil prices seeming at least to have stabilized after a modest recovery, and the ruble rebounding so strongly from a late autumn collapse that the Russian Central Bank has begun buying dollars to keep it from appreciating further, the Western economic sanctions seem to have fallen short.
Meanwhile, a cease-fire is mostly holding in eastern Ukraine, limiting casualties and vastly increasing pressure on President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine, who so far has been unable to deliver the increased autonomy for the pro-Russian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk that was called for in the truce agreement brokered by France and Germany.
The subtle shift by the Obama administration reflects a pragmatic recognition that the policy of isolating Russia, economically and diplomatically, is failing, analysts say.
Kerry lays a wreath at a World War II memorial in Sochi
Continued...
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