Is There No One Who Will Stand Up for Ukraine? Seems the West will do anything these days to avoid a confrontation with Vladimir Putin. By JOHN VINOCUR Mr. Vinocur is former executive editor of the International Herald Tribune. No matter, the EUs foreign-policy chief, Federica Mogherini, proposed that Brussels consider a more pro-active approach of possible trade-offs to induce policy change, regardless of further Russian pressure, intimidation, and manipulation. Look at the maneuver like this: Ms. Mogherini, a geopolitical social worker-type, was acting as if the EU wanted to signal its readiness to set up a parole-board hearing for a still-at-large major criminal-notwithstanding the objections expressed on Monday by foreign ministers on Europes Putin-endangered eastern periphery. Yet considering Mr. Putins newest success in widening critical differences between and within the Alliance and EU, there is obviously no single strong notion about what to do. On one side, NATO will be getting about 150 U.S. tanks and armored vehicles, sufficient to equip a heavy armored brigade, for prepositioning in Eastern Europe. But eventual supply by Washington of lethal defensive arms to Ukraine remains chimeric. I prefer, Mr. Hollande adds, to position myself in a perspective of emerging from the crisis. Mr. Hollande might have read a response from Alexei Navalny, Russias leading opposition activist, now under house arrest. Without the sanctions, the Russian Army would be in Odessa, he told Le Monde. So where does President Barack Obama, the Wests nominal leader, stand? He laid out his line last month: The idea that ramping up sanctions further and further and further and somehow Putin will change his mind is a miscalculation. . . . Sometimes its tempting to say we can go even further, but that wont do us any good if suddenly the Europeans peel off. And then what? Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO under Presidents Bush and Obama, says the truth is gruesome and must be opposed: Everybody thinks it is more important not to be confronting Russia than saving Ukraine. If that means giving up on Ukraine, thats what can happen. wsj/articles/john-vinocur-is-there-no-one-who-will-stand-up-for-ukraine-1421702240?KEYWORDS=Ukraine
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:51:21 +0000