Containing Putin's Russia.

• Author: Powaski, Ronald E.
• Position: World Watcher - Vladimir Putin

"Using the same rationale that Adolf Hitler employed in occupying Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in 1938-the alleged need to protect that country's German minority--Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin has claimed the right to intervene in Ukraine and neighboring countries to protect ethnic Russians."

IN MARCH 2014, Russian troops occupied Ukrainian Crimea and fomented an uprising in the Donbas region by ethnic Russian separatists. In spite of two ceasefire agreements that were negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, fighting has continued. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the Donbas fighting, devastating that region and severely straining the Ukrainian economy.

Using the same rationale that Adolf Hitler employed in occupying Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in 1938--the alleged need to protect that country's German minority-Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin has claimed the right to intervene in Ukraine and neighboring countries to protect ethnic Russians. He also argues that a Ukraine tied to the West, either economically or militarily, would threaten Russia's security. The fact is, however, a free and democratic Ukraine tied to the West would not threaten Russia's security, but it would threaten Putin's repressive autocracy by offering a model to the Russian people for overthrowing a corrupt oligarchy.

Shortly before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Pres. Viktor Yushchenko was overthrown by a popular uprising in Kiev, the nation's capital. The revolt was prompted not only by the massive corruption of Yushchenko and his government but, more importantly, because he had rejected closer Ukrainian ties with the European Union in favor of a tighter relationship with Russia. Putin, who obviously does not want to share Yushchenko's fate, will continue to do all in his power--and as much as the West permits--to prevent Ukraine from becoming a viable state, and thereby halt the "virus" of democracy from spreading to Russia.

Putin not only is a threat to a free and democratic Ukraine, he is a danger to the European international order. By invading and annexing the Crimea and fomenting the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russia has violated the Charter of the United Nations and the Final Act of the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which requires member states, including Russia, to respect one another's independence and territorial integrity. Moreover, Putin has violated a 1994 agreement by which Russia again promised to respect Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity. In exchange, Ukraine agreed to turn over to Russia the nuclear weapons that had been deployed on its territory when Ukraine still was a part of the Soviet Union.

Putin not only has torn up the treaties that uphold the international order, he is challenging the viability of NATO, whose primary responsibility is the defense of its member nations, including the U.S. Although Ukraine is not a member of NATO, if Putin gets away with his aggression there, what will prevent him from applying the same "salami-slicing" strategy against other East European countries that are members of the alliance, some of which also...