Editorials

The Irish Times view on the Ukraine crisis: the drumbeat of war gets louder

Vladimir Putin’s intentions remain unclear, and the West can do nothing except prepare for the worst

Soldiers of the Bundeswehr prepare Panzerhaubitze PZH 2000 155mm self-propelled howitzers for transport to Lithuania on Monday. Germany is sending an additional 350 soldiers and heavy equipment to its current deployment in Lithuania, where it leads a Nato Enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Mon Feb 14 2022 - 20:56

Vladimir Putin's strategy of publicly denying hostile intentions towards Ukraine while liberally sprinkling around clues to the contrary, has raised regional tensions to the point where many are convinced an attack will begin this week. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said on Sunday that an attack by Russia against Ukraine could begin "any day now", including "this coming week before the end of the Olympics".

The Russian president's intentions remain inscrutably shrouded, and the West can do nothing except prepare for the worst. Embassies are closing, and citizens being pulled out, with governments warning they can do nothing for them once the Russians invade. Perhaps it is a post-Afghanistan excess of caution, but it contributes to the sense of inevitable, imminent invasion.

Western intelligence services are doing their best to undermine potential Russian excuses by warning against being fooled by “false flag” provocations of incursion.

The drumbeat of war gets louder. Markets had the jitters yesterday. European natural gas contracts for next-month delivery jumped 12 per cent. International oil benchmark Brent crude rose as high as $96.16 a barrel, the highest in more than seven years. Airlines have cut flights to Kyiv. And the US dispatched an additional 3,000 troops to support Poland, while the EU, US and others are elaborating extensive sanctions.

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Countries neighbouring Ukraine are preparing to receive refugees in the event of a full-scale invasion. The European Commission is also working on the issue, with Washington predicting up to 5 million people could cross Ukraine's western border. Germany's new chancellor Olaf Scholz is following a series of Western leaders to Moscow to reinforce the message that Russia will pay a heavy price – including, Scholtz will tell Putin today, the cut-off of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Scholz is resolute in the message that the West will defend Ukraine's sovereign right to join Nato, although the organisation has no intention of admitting it at this stage.

Diplomacy has not yet failed. France’s Emmanuel Macron has admitted that Russia has a right to raise “security concerns” of its own, notionally Putin’s rationale for the 130,000 troops on the border. There is space, short of guarantees of non-Nato membership or permanent Russian “spheres of influence”, for talk of Austrian-like neutrality for Ukraine, which could provide security reassurances for both Moscow and Nato.

Russia has also hinted that it is willing to discuss implementation of the dormant Minsk agreement, aimed at resolving the conflict in the east Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, parts of which are controlled by Russia-backed separatists. If, that is, Putin is genuinely interested in security, and not in dreams of lost empire.

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