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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPutin Is Operating on His Own Timetable, and It May Be a Long One
The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine could turn into a drawn-out and dangerous diplomatic slog toward a difficult settlement.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/world/europe/ukraine-putin-russia.html
MOSCOW The Ukraine crisis is here to stay. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is increasingly staking his legacy on reversing Ukraines pro-Western shift. Even if he does not order an invasion this winter, he is making clear that he will keep the pressure on, backed by the threat of force, for as long as it takes to get his way. But Ukraines leaders have so far refused to compromise on Mr. Putins terms, and the West sees the Kremlins demand for a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe as a nonstarter. That leaves the best-case scenario as a long and dangerous diplomatic slog toward a difficult settlement a process that could consume Western resources and attention for many months.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, shuttling from Moscow to Kyiv to Berlin on Monday and Tuesday, described the coming days as crucial in the Wests bid to avert war. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, in some of his strongest comments yet, insisted that Russia would suffer far-reaching consequences if it attacked Ukraine. Mr. Putin has countered with a pledge to keep the dialogue going. It is a message that implies he would be deliberate in using his levers of influence and coercion to deal with the longstanding Russian grievances that the Kremlin appears newly determined to address.
Russias current military buildup around Ukraine is so extensive that Mr. Putin will have to decide in the coming weeks whether to order an invasion or pull some troops back, analysts say. But even if he draws them down, he will have other means to keep his adversaries on edge, like exercises of his nuclear forces, cyberattacks or future buildups. And if he does attack, the Wests current diplomatic scramble is likely to only intensify. I expect well have this crisis with us, in various forms, for all of 2022, at least, said Andrei Sushentsov, dean of the school of international relations at MGIMO, the elite Moscow university run by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
He described the current standoff as only the first step in a drawn-out Russian effort to force the West to agree to a new security architecture for Eastern Europe. It was a characterization of the start of a more high-stakes phase in Russias yearslong conflict with the West that is gaining currency in Moscows foreign-policy circles. Russias aim, according to Mr. Sushentsov: keep the threat of war ever-present, and thus compel negotiations that Western officials have avoided until now. For too long, he said in an interview, people in Western Europe have been lulled into thinking that a new war on the continent was impossible. For Mr. Putin, that point of view needs to be changed, Mr. Sushentsov said, to compel the West to accept Russias demands.
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Putin Is Operating on His Own Timetable, and It May Be a Long One (Original Post)
Celerity
Feb 2022
OP
msongs
(67,369 posts)1. putin's ir running the hitler-czech-poland game point for point nt
OAITW r.2.0
(24,337 posts)2. End Game For Putin?
Paging Mel Brooks.
OnDoutside
(19,948 posts)3. I had to double check that this wasn't a Pravda/RT article...
FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)4. Wow, even Putin's people at the NYTimes are running scared. (Nt)