Approaching winter favors Putin in Ukraine crisis

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin hawks believe they have plenty of time to resolve the Ukraine crisis in their favor. 

Reinforcements are due in less than 60 days. Moscow knows that even now getting on his kit and stepping into his boots is General Winter, the most successful military officer in Russian history.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, due this week in Washington, is also aware that with General Winter comes the cooling Ukraine temperatures in October and immoderate snowfall by November that will force an accommodation on a fragile Kiev coalition government. Everyone, from utopians to neo-Nazis, knows that Ukraine cannot heat its cities or sustain its infrastructure without Russian natural gas.

Kiev is also well aware that the military failure in the Donbass offensive combined with the politicking for the imminent new elections means that there are loud, threatening voices from within the so-called National Guard battalion. There is even talk of a third Maidan (translation: “coup”), and this time it will be anti–ruling class, a step into anarchy. The defeated battalion commanders, especially from the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and the volunteer, savage Chechens hold Kiev responsible as betrayers and cowards.

The EU also knows that General Winter rides not just against Ukraine and Eastern Europe — the old Warsaw Pact countries — but also against Western Europe. Despite all the talk of alternative sources for the last 20 years, the EU has no remedy for a Russian energy cutback.

The chess game has already started: The Kremlin began selectively cutting supplies to Poland last week up to 24 percent. Why start cutbacks when the weather is still warm? Because Moscow does not want Poland, the leader of the anti-Kremlin clique in NATO — to stockpile gas to feed into Ukraine so it can outlast Russian entreaties. 

EU sanctions have bothered the Kremlin, but not to the extent that it cannot counter. In Tajikistan last week, Putin reminded EU countries waiting for their natural gas allotments, “We’ve long been convinced that sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy are ineffective and practically never bring about their desired result.” One possible interpretation of Putin’s remarks: Moscow can be just as ineffective with energy sanctions as the U.S. and EU. For example, the latest sanctions damaged Exxon’s Arctic plans in Russia.

Moscow has other tools beside energy embargoes. The Kremlin is in the midst of a détente campaign toward right-wing political parties in the EU. The offensive is well underway in France with Marie Le Pen, the potent young head of the conservative National Front who leads President François Hollande in the polls for the next election and who has said that she and Putin have “shared values.” Moscow presents the European right wing with a government model that preaches openly about restoring Judeo-Christian values in politics as well as culture. That the Kremlin can be fairly described as illiberal is understood in Moscow as praiseworthy, because the liberal governances of Washington, London and elsewhere are regarded as dysfunctional and unsustainable. 

What attracts European right-wing parties to Putin is his partnership with the Russian Orthodox Church in supporting a population explosion. While EU countries suffer from shrinking populations, the Kremlin castigates birth control and abortion and offers advantages to large families. Also, the Kremlin praises the patriotism of the Russian Orthodox Church and disdains atheism and dissent. Putin’s regime routinely seeks the blessing of the church for all the aggressive endeavors in Ukraine, such as when the priests blessed the convoy of white trucks delivering air to the Donbass region. Most important, the Kremlin boats to European right-wing parties how it combats radical Islam in the Caucasus. The long suppression of Islamic militants seeking to establish an emirate in the Caucasus is offered as a model of how to constrain restive Muslim populations.

The Kremlin strategy in the Middle East also impresses the European right wing. Moscow maintains sturdy diplomatic ties with all the actors in the Syrian civil war, especially with mutual adversaries Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Kremlin regards Tehran as a regional hegemon that can slow the predation of radical Islamists such as Al-Qaeda, the Nusrah Front and now the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Europe’s right-wing parties see the Kremlin as a strong ally to the beleaguered minorities of the Middle East, especially its Christians. Putin has long made it clear to Tehran that Moscow would not tolerate an attack with weapons of mass destruction on Israel that would damage not only the Christian sites controlled by the Orthodox Church but also Moscow’s newfound allies in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The Kurds in Iraq, Syria and Iran also look to Moscow for support to survive the battering by ISIL militants. What military equipment is reaching the Kurds of Iraq right now comes not from the U.S. or NATO but from Tehran, backed by Russian arms suppliers.

Poroshenko’s address to the U.S. Congress today will speak of freedom in the face of Russian military aggression. He will plead for help from a Washington that has fallen under the shadow of misrule with fractured governance and an unpopular president on the eve of midterm elections that will be a rebuke of Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policies. Poroshenko’s pleas will fall on deaf ears.

A wiser Poroshenko will realize that the seasons are quickly favoring the Kremlin, not only as the victor in Ukraine but also as the new face of success in the struggling, divided EU. With only Obama’s bully pulpit on offer — not bullets or bombers — Poroshenko will go home to a country that could make him an ex-president as General Winter passes over the continent.