President Joe Biden’s attempts to placate Moscow and dissuade it from another invasion of Ukraine will not have the intended effect.
The Kremlin does not accept the existence of an independent Ukrainian state that aspires to Western integration. The primary purpose of Russia’s military buildup along Ukraine’s borders is to convince Washington to push Kyiv into accepting Russian-directed autonomous regions on its territory that will block its Western progress. Washington, Brussels, and Berlin must appear to the Kremlin as the Three Kings bearing geostrategic gifts. The first gift has been the acceptance of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to help Moscow strangle Ukraine economically, deprive it of substantial energy transit fees, increase Europe’s dependence on Moscow’s energy supplies, and deepen the European Union’s susceptibility to geopolitical blackmail.
The Biden administration is lobbying Congress against passing tougher sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Its assumption is that this can pacify Putin and improve relations with Germany. In reality, Berlin has consistently prostrated itself in front of Moscow. German business leaders would relish any easing of sanctions against Moscow regardless of the fate of victimized states such as Ukraine. Despite claims from the White House, if Nord Stream 2 was aborted, Germany would not cease to cooperate with the United States on addressing climate change and would still pursue beneficial business deals with Beijing. German leaders, with a few exceptions, have consistently demonstrated that business, profit, and pacifism take precedence over security, democracy, and human rights. The new coalition government in Berlin seems unlikely to change that equation.
Biden’s second gift to Putin may well be Ukraine’s territories. Moscow is ratcheting up the threat of invasion to convince Biden to pressure Ukraine into major concessions. Pushing Kyiv to accept occupied parts of Donbas as autonomous entities under the Minsk Protocol (arranged without U.S. involvement) will simply legitimize Moscow’s aggression, undercut the Ukrainian government, and provoke social unrest from which Russia can benefit.
In February 2014, Russian forces seized Ukraine’s Crimea region and engineered a proxy war in the Donbas region to create entities that can veto Kyiv’s policy decisions. If Kyiv accepts the entities as legitimate without a complete Russian troop withdrawal, it would in effect subordinate itself to Moscow. Such capitulation would encourage further Kremlin inroads on Ukrainian territory. Washington’s complicity in such an arrangement would help facilitate Moscow’s expansionist foreign policy and undermine the security of neighboring NATO allies.
If any U.S.-Russia deal undermines Kyiv’s control over the Donbas, the Summit for Democracy in Washington on December 9-10 will appear a sham, especially for countries bordering Russia. Instead of resisting and deterring authoritarian expansion, the White House would be directly complicit in establishing autocratic statelets in the middle of Europe. Moreover, Moscow will feel emboldened, knowing that if it masses troops along a neighbor’s borders, the West may surrender preemptively. Retreat always encourages aggression, and only an extensive package of military assistance to Ukraine, tough economic sanctions on Moscow, and diplomatic isolation of the Putin regime will demonstrate U.S. resolve.
Biden’s third gift to Putin, with French and German applause, could paradoxically be what many analysts feared during the Trump administration. It would entail a “grand bargain” between the U.S. and Russia whereby in return for “stability and predictability,” Moscow would be allowed to exert “privileged influence” over its former conquests. The Kremlin has proposed such arrangements to each U.S. administration by framing it as a security pact promoting cooperation in various domains, from arms control to cybersecurity. Such agreements may look tempting, but they will ignite new regional conflicts, as no country bordering Russia, including the citizens of Belarus, will agree to incorporation in a new Russian dominion.
The three gifts would weaken the international posture of the Biden administration. Being popular in pacifist Germany, as public opinion indicates, should not be a source of pride if one loses credibility among staunch NATO allies such as Poland, Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania and among NATO partners, such as Ukraine, that are willing to defend their independence and the security of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Janusz Bugajski is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C. His recent book Eurasian Disunion: Russia’s Vulnerable Flanks is co-authored with Margarita Assenova. His upcoming book is titled Failed State: Planning for Russia’s Rupture.
