The 2022 mark of shame will be as hard to wash away for Europe as 1938 Munich
On the evening of the first day of the war, the "most severe" sanctions, which had already been mentioned and, one presumes, prepared in advance, were announced. Just how severe these sanctions were was shown the next morning, Friday, on the Moscow Stock Exchange, where trading resumed with a 22% rise in the indices.
To be fair, the fall the previous day was even greater and share prices did not return to their pre-war levels, but it is easy to conclude that the market was counting on tougher sanctions. Although US President Joe Biden said that the inclusion of certain banks on the sanctions list would be an even more painful blow than Russia being cut off from the SWIFT payment system, the abandonment of this particular sanctions instrument allowed investors to breathe a sigh of relief.
In his speech dedicated specifically to sanctions, Biden said that the US would have been prepared to cut Russia off from SWIFT, but that Europe had not agreed to it. It turns out that Germany, Italy, Hungary and Cyprus blocked this decision. The leaders of these countries have argued that the domestic losses from such a move would be too great and would not outweigh the damage done to Russia. Various figures have been quoted, ranging from €16 billion to €46 billion, but in any case, these are pennies against the backdrop of Covid trillions. The European Commission and the European Central Bank would have little difficulty in compensating the economic operators concerned for these losses, but the political will to do so was clearly lacking.
Donald Tusk, President of the European People's Party and former head of the European Commission, tweeted: "In this war everything is real: Putin’s madness and cruelty, Ukrainian victims, bombs falling on Kyiv. Only your sanctions are pretended." The fear that the West would once again limit itself to "strong condemnation" and severe (read: symbolic) sanctions turned out to be almost justified. Almost, because the sanctions will be more painful than before. They will also affect the sons of some Kremlin nobles (Patrushev, Sechin and Ivanov, who have long been sanctioned themselves), many businessmen close to Putin, four big banks (VTB, Otkrytiye, Sovkombank, Novikombank, but not Sberbank) will be almost destroyed - it will be dangerous to work with them, there will also be are restrictions on technology imports and other burdens, but no doubt all this does not worry Putin in the slightest. To be more precise, when the military operation was launched, such risks were already included in the calculations. There is no doubt that Putin was also prepared for much heavier sanctions. So it can be said that, for the time being, everything is going as Putin had hoped.
On Thursday evening, Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was forced to admit in an address to the nation that Ukraine has been left alone to fight the aggressor. Unfortunately, I have to agree with him. Moreover, with this admission, Zelensky did not mean that he expected that another country would declare war on Russia and fight against it together with Ukraine. When he said that they had been left alone, he must have meant that he expected that the world's reaction would be much harsher. Nor is there any sign of a massive flow of arms into Ukraine. I have to say it like it is: the treachery of the West is appalling. This shame will be difficult for Europe, especially Germany and France, to wash off.
The fact that everything is going according to Putin's plan so far does not mean that the outcome will be favorable to him. Even if Ukraine is defeated in the short term; even if the West, after a few years of its usual grumbling, once again visits the international bandit through the "open window" (Emmanuel Macron), this will not mean that Putin has once again gotten away clean. I am not even talking about the fact that it will not be easy to govern a country hostile to oneself, but Putin is not the one who will do that. The local Ukrainian equivalents of Kirhenšteins and Lācis will do that, according to his plan. Nor am I talking about the fact that Putin's Russia will have joined the club of Hussein's Iraq, Gaddafi's Libya and Kim's North Korea, with whom decent people will have no desire to have any relations. Of course, there will always be various people like Schröder who will be prepared to sell out for a decent amount of money, but it is unlikely that any really respectable people will come to the St Petersburg Economic Forum.
Putin's problem will be different, and unfortunately it will concern us directly. To use an analogy, Putin has moved from the soft drug of cannabis (Georgia in 2008, Crimea, Donbas in 2014) to the hard drug of heroin (open, frontal hostilities between different armed groups). There, the level of addiction and, above all, withdrawal is quite different. I have already written that once you are on the trail of open warfare, it is impossible to get off. Winning a war gives you too much serotonin not to want to do it again and again. If Putin manages to win a convincing victory in Ukraine, which is not yet a given, then the next step will be the Baltic States and Poland, which are already part of NATO.
There is an unshakable conviction among the experts that Putin will be frightened by NATO's military, economic and technological might, but only a week ago the same experts were sneering at those who considered an invasion of Ukraine to be a very real possibility. It is obvious that Putin's megalomania is on the rise. In the event of a swift victory over Ukraine, it could take on cosmic proportions, with equally limitless consequences.
Nor should it be forgotten that the Russian army will have gained not only combat experience that NATO forces do not have, but also psychological confidence (in the event of a relatively easy victory). After all, past NATO military operations in various hotspots were very different from what is happening now in Ukraine, and the current NATO military leadership has no fresh, inspiring victories.
If we speak specifically about the current hostilities in Ukraine, it is clear that the situation now is not comparable to the situation in 2014, when the Ukrainian army, at least at the beginning of the hostilities, was completely demoralized. There is real resistance, real fighting, with many dead on both sides. Putin's plan to take Kyiv as soon as possible has now crystallized (an opportunity made possible by the Belarusian dictator's desire to be in power at any cost, including the cost of national betrayal). By taking Kyiv, Putin hopes to convince the Ukrainian army that there is no point in continuing the resistance.
Even if Ukraine is defeated, it will be with its head held high. Not like Europe, which has proved to be just as cowardly as the Kremlin propagandists, led by Solovyov and Kiselyov, have been telling year after year.