Putin’s Tools of Sabotage Beat Urgency of Ukraine Invasion
By Henry Meyer Mar 19, 2014 10:42 AM ET
After annexing Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not need to invade the rest of Ukraine to bring it to its knees. Political and financial sabotage can work just as well.
While Putin promised yesterday that Russia isn’t about to send in troops, he has plenty of other tools to undermine the Western-backed Ukrainian government. They include fomenting insurrection by Russian-speakers, waging a cyberwar and crippling Ukraine financially by ramping up natural gas prices and demanding the repayment of billions of dollars in debts.
“Putin has the means to drastically destabilize Ukraine,” Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, said by phone. “The more problems and unrest, the better his chances of getting east Ukraine to exit and join Russia.”
More than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s pro-Western ambitions represent the biggest challenge for Putin as he seeks to project Russian power in his backyard.
Putin, in a speech to lawmakers yesterday, accused the West of relentlessly encroaching on Russia’s interests since the end of the Cold War as the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanded eastward. He described Ukraine, where leaked audio recordings have shown U.S. diplomats discussing how to oust Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovych and who should replace him, as the last straw.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-19/putin-s-tools-of-sabotage-trump-urgency-of-ukraine-intervention.html
