The world needs an honest American Russia policy

[LONGREAD]

Throughout Ukraine’s modern history, America’s Russia policy has played a major role in Ukraine’s affairs. Since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine in 2014, the U.S. has led the international effort to thwart Putin’s war.

As the only country in the world defending itself against armed aggression by Moscow, Ukraine is at the front-line of international efforts to halt the Russian menace.

This is why, in light of the recent renewed calls for “normalizing” relations with Russia, our group of political leaders, experts, and intellectuals from Ukraine and the diaspora feel compelled to contribute to the revived debate on America’s Russia policy.

The world simply cannot afford another American “reset” with Russia. On the contrary, we appeal to the U.S. to pursue a more robust policy to address Moscow’s hostile actions which undermine the global security order.

A new reset based on old narratives

Calls for a new “reset” are grounded in fallacious narratives Moscow has been advancing for years, especially the notion of Russian exceptionalism.

According to the Kremlin, Russia is a nation whose interests have a privileged standing in world affairs, entitled to coerce other nations into its sphere of influence, “protect” Russian speakers anywhere they are, and suppress human rights and freedoms at home under its “managed democracy” form of governance. Moscow is trying to convince the world that Russia is “owed” special consideration for its interests after having been “unjustly victimized” by the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Above all, Russia wants to be perceived as a global super power with a leading role in all world affairs.

Putin’s Russia

But the world must face what Russia is today.

An authoritarian mafia regime which relies on the oppressive imperialist, chauvinist, and revanchist ideology of “Russkiy mir”, Russia is the main exporter of various threats and instability in the world.

Putin’s quest for global power, and resulting rivalry with the West, relies on Russia’s aggressive stance to compensate for its lack of economic and technological competitiveness.

The scale of Moscow’s attack on the world order is massive, with liberal democracies as the prime targets. To overpower its opponents, Russia brutally violates international law with actions that unequivocally demonstrate it is a rogue terrorist state threatening global peace:

• armed aggression against Georgia and Ukraine;
• war crime atrocities in Syria, Ukraine, and Georgia;
• nuclear threat against Ukraine and proliferation of nuclear weapons in Russia-occupied Crimea;
• acts of terror abroad: cyber attacks, political assassinations using weapons of mass destruction and chemical warfare, shoot down of passenger jet MH17;
• occupation of sovereign territories of Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine, including the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region;
• ethnic cleansing, ethnocide, and other gross human rights violations in Russia-occupied territories: politically motivated assassinations, political imprisonments (including 132 Ukrainian political prisoners, seventeen more than just a year ago), extraterritorial prosecutions, intimidation by violence, abduction, unlawful prosecution, and discrimination based on ethnicity and religion;
• political, economic and military support for authoritarian regimes in Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, and elsewhere;
• subversion of democratic processes around the world: interference with UK and Dutch referendums, disinformation warfare attacks on American, Ukrainian, and other elections, attempted coup d'état in Montenegro, backing of political entities with Russia-friendly agendas, including extremist radicals, populists, and neo-Nazi groups;
• subversive, worldwide propaganda effort: disinformation, hate propaganda targeting various social groups and nations, especially Americans and Ukrainians;
• economic pressure and energy blackmail of European nations; etc.

The Kremlin is fixated on undermining the United States in particular because a weakened America will cripple the current international legal order which has restrained Russia’s aggressive ambitions. Moscow craftily exploits anti-American sentiments abroad to find new partners and deprive the U.S. of reliable allies.

Moscow is determined to submit Kyiv to its influence because a free Ukraine is a driver of democratic change in formerly Soviet-occupied nations, threatening Putin’s power projection in the region and beyond. This is why one of the goals of Putin’s “might makes right” strategy is to recreate the 1945 Yalta Conference and redraw the lines of Moscow’s “sphere of influence”. Moscow wants the West to once again agree to sacrifice the sovereignty of nations neighbouring Russia, and legitimize Russia’s global power claims.

Appeasement never works

Reset advocates urge the American government to put the relationship with Russia on a more constructive path. But this move — taken before Moscow ceases its hostile actions — sounds like nothing other than a dressed up strategy of appeasement.

History teaches that dictatorial regimes cannot be appeased. The more concessions dictators manage to extort, the more emboldened they feel.

NATO’s 2008 rejection of Ukraine and Georgia’s applications for the Membership Action Plan set the stage for Russia’s armed aggression against Georgia later that year. The 2009 “reset” of relations primed Russia for its unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. A feeble response of “concern” to Russia’s initial occupation of Crimea emboldened Putin to illegally annex the Ukrainian peninsula.

Constantly shifting red lines, a response of “political dialogue” with Putin when support for Ukraine’s military defence was needed, and American inaction on its obligations under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances paved the way for Moscow’s military invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Despite being given every incentive to reverse its destructive course, Russia has continued to escalate its aggression. Putin has chosen not to take any face saving exit because he is counting on cutting a better deal by continuously raising the stakes.

We can only imagine what will follow should Moscow be granted a new reset today.

We encourage the American government to learn from its own past dealings with Russia particularly since today’s criminal regime in Moscow is the same one of the 2009 reset.

Moscow’s aggression must be countered

As we have seen for almost three decades, “political dialogue” with Russia only invites further escalation. Putin uses all means available to him to construct circumstances that strengthen Moscow’s bargaining position vis-a-vis the international community.

The international community has been pursuing the path of diplomacy for years to deal with Russian occupation in Moldova and Georgia with no progress on de-occupation.

The response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine went further with the introduction of an international sanctions regime; condemnation of Russia’s violations of international law by national governments and international institutions; removing Russia from the G7; providing Ukraine with military assistance; and impeding the construction of Russia’s subversive Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with meaningful sanctions.

While the limited sanctions regime helped prevent Russia’s military aggression from dramatically escalating, it did not sufficiently deprive Russia of resources to force Moscow out of Ukraine. A stronger approach is needed.

Different treatment of Moscow’s violations of international law

The approach in dealing with Russia’s violations of international law is radically different from how Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was repressed just three decades ago. There are two main reasons for this: Moscow’s usurped seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia’s nuclear capability.

Russia’s use of its veto right in the UNSC prevents proper UN action to restore peace to Ukraine, showing a drastic need for reform of this organization. The world is less secure because the UNSC is not capable of performing its core function of promoting world peace.

Exploiting the fear of nuclear confrontation is one of Moscow’s favourite tools of intimidation. Russia has used this threat against Ukraine.

Moscow’s threat of nuclear attack

In 1994, Ukraine gave up the world's third biggest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances from the U.S., Russia, and Great Britain (later, China and France) when it signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances and joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Moscow violated its Budapest Memorandum obligations to never use force - including using the threat of nuclear attack - against Ukraine when Russia used its nuclear status to intimidate Ukraine into constraining its military defence in response to Moscow’s military invasion of Crimea in 2014. Russian state propaganda was threatening to turn Ukraine to ashes, and Russian parliament authorized Putin to use military force in Ukraine, allowing Putin to strike with full military might. Had Ukraine responded militarily in Crimea, it would have increased the risk of a situation that could trigger Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.

A year later, in March 2015, Putin confirmed that such a risk was indeed high, when he acknowledged that during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, he was ready to put Russia's nuclear weapons on standby. Despite this nuclear threat hanging over it, when Russia continued its military invasion into eastern Ukraine, threatening to occupy roughly half the country, Kyiv had no option but to respond militarily.

Had it not, Russia would have fragmented the country to the sound of the international community’s diplomatic statements of “concern”.

Importantly, by attacking Ukraine and re-nuclearizing occupied and annexed Crimea, Russia directly undermined the international nuclear non-proliferation regime that the American government had invested enormous efforts to establish.

The Budapest Memorandum confers two clear positive obligations on the U.S. should Ukraine become a victim of an act of aggression. First, “to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine”. Second, to “consult” when Ukraine’s sovereignty is under attack. Regretfully, the U.S. has not fully exhausted the tools available at the United Nations to push back against Russia’s warring regime and restore peace in Ukraine.

The U.S. can still honour its obligation “to seek immediate United Nations Security Council (UNSC) action to provide assistance to Ukraine” by taking action to repress Putin’s aggression at the Security Council.

The obstacle of Russia’s UNSC veto power can be overcome using the U.N.’s “Uniting for Peace” resolution, which provides the General Assembly power to act should the UNSC fail to exercise its responsibility to maintain international peace. Washington should also initiate the suspension of Russia’s vote in the U.N. using the 1974 South African precedent when its delegation was suspended from participation in the GA for crimes of apartheid.

World nuclear stability is safeguarded not only by the number of warheads America and Russia point at each other, but also by the robustness of the security assurances given to the nations, like Ukraine, which joined the non-proliferation regime. If remaining non-nuclear means becoming the prey of nuclear states, nations will continue the arms race.

By fulfilling its legal commitments to Ukraine, America will contribute to strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime by reassuring other nations they have support if attack by a nuclear state.

American leadership

It is time for an honest and moral policy towards Russia.

While it is for America to determine its policies, we ask that when designing its Russia policy, the American government remember that a new “reset” of relations will serve to unjustly reward Russia for willfully and flagrantly committing human rights abuses, wars of aggression, war crimes, and other violations of key tenets of international law. It will also condemn millions to live in fear for their lives and liberty.

America cannot become a tacit accomplice to Putin’s dictatorial regime.

In the twenty-first century, we should not allow nations which gravely violate international law to benefit from their own violations. Criminal governments committing atrocities cannot be treated with respect. They should be brought to accountability.

Moscow does not deserve special treatment as a world super power. It should be treated as other rogue nations that threaten world peace. The U.S. has contained the threat of outlaw nations by pursuing policies that isolate them, deprive them of resources for hostile actions, and even repress their aggression with military might. Washington should be consistent and apply the same approach to Russia.

A new “reset” will allow Russia to undermine our societies from within with impunity. The Kremlin is sowing hatred to exploit divisions in our societies. It is corrupting and subverting institutions, co-opting business and political elites, and disarming our societies so we cannot resist its subversion.

We call on the United States not to resign itself to accepting the dominating nationalistic and chauvinistic beliefs of Russian society brainwashed by a steady diet of hateful propaganda. We owe it to the victims of Putin’s crimes around the world to try to change Russia’s ideological “framework” of hatred. We owe it to future generations that may be deprived of democracy and freedom should Putin’s destructive vision for the world prevail.

It is time to stop futilely waiting for Putin’s change of heart.

America and its allies have many tools to drive democratic change in Russia, from supporting pro-democracy and human rights groups, and oppressed national groups, to going after dirty Russian money laundered in the West. They also have the tools to put Moscow in a position where it has no choice but to end its aggressive foreign policies.

The U.S. can help achieve this goal by going after Russian oligarchs and organizations acting as extensions of the Russian government, as well as other accomplices of the Kremlin's aggressive and subversive actions in the West. Russia should be recognized as a state sponsor of terrorism. The Russian “private” “Wagner” army, as well as its occupation administrations in Ukraine, must be recognized as terrorist organizations. Russian officials responsible for violations of human rights and gross violations of international law must be sanctioned. Those responsible for war crimes should be declared war criminals, and submitted to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.

The U.S. has a right to demand that Moscow adhere to the UN Charter. Russia sanctions should be proportional to Moscow’s violations of international law and steadily increased until it changes course.

America can also play a pivotal role by formally and officially recognizing Russia as the aggressor state responsible for waging unlawful interstate war against Ukraine. It is frustrating that for over six years the international community has played along with Moscow’s denial of its role in the multi-vectored war against Ukraine by describing the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine as “Russia-backed separatism”. This recognition of Russia as the aggressor will further unlock the toolkit to help force Russia stop waging war against Ukraine, and help bring about a just peace to the victim.

The US cannot just draw the line at its doorstep to contain Russia. By subverting other nations, Russia becomes stronger and the international legal order weaker. The United States is only as strong as its network of allies around the world. Free and democratic Ukraine is one of America’s partners. A Ukraine subverted and subsumed by Moscow cannot be. This is why we also ask that the United States support Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.

Putin has been able to extend Russia’s destructive influence because his aggressive actions have not faced a formidable deterrent. We appeal to the United States to regain its will to build such deterrents to protect world democracy from Russia.

We can stop Putin together. Assertive and principled international action under bold U.S leadership can bring an end to Russia’s destructive ambitions, and make our countries and the world safer from Putin’s threat.

About authors:

Political and legal analyst, Director, Direct Initiative International Centre for Ukraine. Sanctioned by the Russian Federation.

Chair, National Interests Advocacy Network ANTS, Chair Zero Corruption Conference, Member of Ukrainian Parliament and Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2014-2019

Legal expert, Chairman, Direct Initiative International Centre for Ukraine