Ukraine: it's time brutish Putin was held to account
Russia under Putin has become a threat – regional and global – and its behaviour should be challenged
Personal belongings and luggage of passengers on Malaysia Arilines flight MH17. Photograph: Anastasia Vlasova/EPA
The evidence is mounting. It suggests that pro-Russian separatists, using a sophisticated Buk missile, shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17
on Thursday, as it flew above eastern Ukraine. The rebels had boasted
of having acquired the anti-aircraft system. Earlier last week they used
it to shoot down a Ukrainian military transport plane. They initially
believed they had downed another "fascist" jet. Instead, they mistakenly
hit a civilian passenger aircraft, on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala
Lumpur, with 298 people on board.
This was, as Barack Obama put it, "an outrage of unspeakable proportions".
The fields around the crash were scattered with wreckage and bodies.
The victims were predominantly Dutch, Malaysian, and Australian, and
from Indonesia, Germany, Belgium, the Philippines, Canada and New
Zealand. Ten Britons are among the dead; one American. Eighty children
perished. Fifteen cabin crew. This was a multi-national catastrophe. It
has profound consequences for the world's relations with Russia.
Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko
has called the shooting down of MH17 a "terrorist act". He blames
pro-Moscow rebels. But the ultimate culprit, he says, is the Kremlin;
the disaster a shocking wake-up call to a Europe reluctant to confront Vladimir Putin.
The White House agrees with Kiev. Obama has not – yet – directly blamed
Moscow. But he notes the context in which the disaster took place.
Russia has fuelled the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. It has supplied
weapons to the separatists. Its leaders, Russian citizens, report
directly to Russia's spy agencies.
Those who blew MH17 out of the
sky need to be brought to justice. For this to happen there must be a
full, credible and unimpeded investigation into the circumstances of the
disaster. Russia needs to cooperate. It must allow access to
international investigators, pressuring the rebels if necessary. The UN
and the OSCE should play a leading role. OSCE representatives – the
separatists have kidnapped them in the past – need to be given time to
examine the evidence. And the plane's black boxes should be handed over
to an international commission, not spirited away to Moscow.
So
far, though, it appears Russia's priority is to obstruct the
investigation. Heavily armed rebels have given limited access to OSCE
delegates who have been allowed to see only a small area of the crash
site in Grabovo, next to the Russian border. Yesterday the rebels were
reportedly, and unforgivably, blocking access while western intelligence
experts say they are busy destroying evidence at the crash site. Others
report that some of the rebels present at the site are drunk. If the
shooting down of the aeroplane was wild, reckless and tragic then the
behaviour of the rebels in the aftermath has been depraved. It is
unspeakable that a head of state – in this case Putin – oversees such a
catalogue of human grotesqueness and fails to call those responsible to
account. Putin, however, operates in a different moral zone.
The
Russian president argues that Ukraine is responsible for the disaster
since the Boeing was shot down over its territory. Meanwhile, the
Russian media has been busy constructing its own counter-version of
events. State-controlled TV has reported that the Ukrainian army blew MH17 out of the sky,
possibly believing it to be Putin's personal jet. It denies the rebels
have surface-to-air missiles, despite video footage showing the
truck-mounted system trundling through east Ukraine (and more recently
heading back to Russia). The goal of these fictions is two-fold. One is
to convince Russians their government is blameless. The other is to
muddy the truth, and thereby weaken any international response.
Russia
under Putin has become a threat – regional and global. The Obama
administration has treated Putin as a rational interlocutor. Washington
believed that, with a little cajoling, he might be persuaded to play a
role in solving diplomatic problems, such as Iran or Syria. This has not
been the case. David Cameron wooed Putin, too. The PM watched the judo
with him at the London 2012 Olympics, undermined the inquest into the
death of Alexander Litvinenko, and invited Putin's friends to Tory dinners.
In
reality, Putin is a zero-sum thinker. He believes what is bad for the
US is good for Russia. His view of the world is conspiratorial, and
shaped by a long career in the KGB. When Ukrainians demonstrated against
their corrupt president, Viktor Yanukovych,
late last year Putin saw not a popular protest but a CIA plot. A
pro-western government took over and Putin annexed Crimea. Then he
unleashed an uprising in the east. In recent weeks the Ukrainian army
has pushed back the rebels. In response, Putin has supplied them with
tanks and – it seems – surface-to-air weapons to shoot down Ukrainian
planes.
Russia's behaviour should not go unchallenged. The US has
led the way on imposing sanctions. The EU has been deeply reluctant to
follow. It is worried about losing Russian gas (Germany, Italy) or
Russian cash (the UK). If Russia continues to support the separatists
the EU should impose visa bans and asset freezes on military and
intelligence units known to be operating in eastern Ukraine. It should
target the leadership of Russia's spy agencies – the FSB, SVR, and above
all the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, which has been
orchestrating the rebels' activities. It should consider listing the
Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics" as terrorist groups. And
banning oligarchs linked to the Kremlin, who are fond of London.
We also need to offer Ukraine support. The country is virtually bankrupt;
Yanukovych stole billions from his own treasury, merely the latest in a
long line of venal Ukrainian politicians who have looted the state.
This chronic theft has left it unable to defend itself from attack. The
EU has to stop Ukraine's new government from doing the same. It should
ban Ukrainian officials from owning assets in the west, or force them to
prove their money is honestly obtained before they can buy anything,
including Knightsbridge penthouses.
The west might also ask Russia
to make a financial contribution to UN HIV/Aids funds to make up for
the death of scientists who were on their way to an Aids conference in
Melbourne. And from Donetsk to Gaza, we need to change air traffic
regulations so planes are not cruising within striking distance of a
rocket. Over the past six months Vladimir Putin has redrawn the map of
Europe, fuelled war in a neighbouring sovereign state, and waged a
propaganda campaign, much of it directed at the west, and not seen since
the cold war. The west has largely decided to leave well alone. In
light of what has happened, this is no longer a suitable way to deal
with Putin's amoral, anarchic and brutish Russia.
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