Sanctions should give Russian leader a chance to change
Anger and grief have shaped the reaction to the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, and a desire to identify and punish those responsible is natural. But it has to be emphasised that what happened was not the result of a deliberate act, and it would be foolish to let revenge, or the desire to see someone in the dock, guide policy in its aftermath.
The real issue is not that a civilian aircraft was blown up but that a state of war exists in eastern Ukraine and in the skies above it, and the real problem is how to bring that war to an end. Even as the bodies of the airliner victims were arriving in the Netherlands, rebel missiles brought down two Ukrainian air force jets, and fighting on the ground moved closer to the centres of Donetsk and Luhansk.
This is a mad and dangerous situation. The civilians on the plane have already lost their lives, but there are civilians on the ground in and around these cities, not to mention soldiers, who will soon lose theirs if this continues. The question that the European Union and the US should keep strongly to the fore as they make decisions on sanctions and on other common policies is how to change President Putin’s behaviour and the view he clearly has of Russia’s right to influence in the affairs of Ukraine.
Anything that makes it likely that he will wind down Russian military intervention should be done. Conversely, anything that makes that less likely, even if it might be psychologically satisfying or pleasing to people who have already decided that Russia is beyond the civilised pale, should be avoided. There were going to be some new and enhanced sanctions anyway, even before the airliner tragedy. There will now be a few more, but there will also be an argument that there should be more still, and deeper ones.
Putin faces long-term economic prospects that are not that good, as the balance in world energy supply shifts away from Russia because of the boom in American energy production. Why not, the hawks might argue, shove him harder against the wall than he already is? The answer is that, given his character and his perception that a malign west is trying to demote and isolate Russia, this might well produce, not a withdrawal from Ukraine, but an expansion of military meddling there. Sanctions should be calibrated in such a way as to make the Russian leader reconsider.
They should also be accompanied by moves that could lead to a settlement in Ukraine he might find tolerable, or at least give him cover for a change of approach, as well as being acceptable to Kiev. The excesses of Russian policy have obscured the fact that there is a genuine issue about the future of those Russian speakers in Ukraine who did not welcome the Maidan revolution and remain hostile to Kiev.
