Is Tension With Russia Reaching Its Climax?

Next month marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Crimean crisis, in which a Russian-sponsored revolution of sorts resulted in the Crimean peninsula being seized by pro-Russia rebels. It’s been a long 11 months of back-and-forth sanctions that have resulted in the collapse of the Russian ruble. Whether Vladimir Putin believes it or not, the only way out of this mess is to recognize and respect Ukrainian sovereignty in Crimea.

Putin miscalculated the risk

Vladimir Putin was nothing less than arrogant about the impact Western sanctions would have on his country. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Russian president even told advisers that the world would eventually accept the annexation of Crimea and that Western sanctions would be tolerable for the world’s ninth-largest economy.

Boy, was he wrong. While the uproar over what happened in Ukraine has died down a little as the world has turned its attention to other things, Russia’s economy was beginning to tip toward recession. Then something happened that neither Putin nor Western leaders could have anticipated: On the tail of OPEC falling apart, oil prices have slid 40 percent since midsummer. The lifeblood of the Russian economy, oil prices have gutted any chance for Russia to maintain its defiance against the West.

The ruble fell 45 percent during the course of the year and likely won’t make up much ground, even with the Russian central bank implementing an emergency interest rate hike to 17 percent on December 15. As the pressure compounds itself, Mr. Putin is running out of options.

Western leaders not letting up

If Russia thinks the West has any sympathy for its doldrums, it’s in for a rude awakening. During a two-day summit in Brussels in December, EU leaders agreed to impose new sanctions to keep businesses from operating in Crimea. US President Barack Obama also signed new legislation that allows lawmakers to impose a new wave of punitive sanctions against Russia if it does not comply with demands to abandon all opposition to the current regime in Kiev.

When asked about whether Western leaders would consider backing down in light of the recent happenings, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “Sanctions were imposed for specific reasons and they can be lifted only when these reasons cease to apply.” British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed, declaring that if Putin “takes Russian troops out of Ukraine, and it obeys all the strictures of the Minsk agreement [the ceasefire between Kiev and the eastern Ukraine separatists], these sanctions can go.”

Eggshells remain

While it’s important for EU and US leaders to maintain composure, Russia’s economy is intricately intertwined with the global economy, meaning a recession could have enormous implications for the countries imposing sanctions against it. Because of that, it’s important for leaders to recognize that we’re walking on eggshells here.

French President François Hollande, for example, put it wisely: “I believe that today, if moves are made by Russia as we expect, there is no reason to impose further sanctions… It will be best instead to examine how we also could begin carrying out a de-escalation.” While it’s obvious that Russia will be blinking first in this staring contest, Western leaders need to be ready to calm the situation once that happens. Because if Russia goes down, we might all go with it.