U.S. intelligence officials have been warning that Vladimir Putin, realizing he underestimated Ukrainian resilience, would double down on his campaign of carnage in Ukraine. Now we know what doubling down for Putin looks like.
The targeted destruction of a maternity hospital in the besieged southern city of Mariupol has all the makings of a war crime. Pregnant women, their faces and bodies bloodied, looked dazed as they were carried away on stretchers or wrapped in blankets. At least three people were killed, including a 6-year-old.
Elsewhere in the city, Ukrainians were melting snow for water and chopping down trees to burn for warmth. Bodies are being buried in mass graves. In other heavily bombed cities, stranded Ukrainians also face dwindling food and clean drinking water supplies. More than 2 million refugees have fled the country.
Putin’s actions leave the West with no choice. It will have to also double down.
So far, Western unity in the face of Putin’s barbarity has been a silver lining in what is becoming one of the planet’s biggest crises since World War II. Germany’s bold move to end its coddling of the Kremlin and join in harsh sanctions against Russia — including shutting down the Nord Stream II pipeline — forged a linchpin for that unity. The ever-growing list of Western corporations cutting ties with Russia, from energy giants such as Exxon, BP and Shell to Chicago’s Boeing and McDonalds, sends the right message to Putin that doing business with a murderous despot is not only bad business — it’s morally indefensible.
Now, the Biden administration and the rest of the free world must take the next step. President Joe Biden’s decision to cut off Russian oil shipments to America, while necessary, has minimal impact since only 8% of imported oil into the U.S. comes from Russia. Canada and the U.K. also joined in the Russian oil ban. EU countries are much more reliant on Russian crude, and to an even greater degree, on Russian natural gas. So far, they haven’t joined the energy boycott. But unless Putin reverses course, it’s a sacrifice they should make.
Shutting down Russian energy imports across Europe would deal a body blow to the Russian economy, and in turn, to Putin’s ability to finance his bloody decimation of Ukraine and whatever nation might be next on his list. Energy remains the lifeblood of the Russian economy. Oil and natural gas bankroll a large chunk of the Kremlin’s budget. The West must be braced for Putin to escalate his delusional designs on reconstituting Soviet glory — geographically and geopolitically. He will rely on the biggest card he has to play — the Kremlin’s military might. Preventing Russia from becoming an even greater military threat than it is must be a non-negotiable, top-shelf priority for the U.S., NATO, and their allies.
No doubt, the hurt would be big on European countries. Europe gets about 25% of its oil and 40% of its natural gas from Russia. Prices at the pump would shoot up yet further, as would utility bills.
But the pain Putin is inflicting on the Ukrainian populace cuts much deeper.
There’s a way to alleviate some of hardship the West would face. So far, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have resisted pumping more oil into the world’s crude supplies in order to offset the impact from diminished Russian energy output. The calculus of those countries is simple. Ramping up production would bring down prices, and mean less cash coming into Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. It behooves the Biden administration to sell the leaders of those countries on the long-term benefit of preventing Putin from inflicting even more harm than he has already.
Taking that tack will require the Biden administration to opt for pragmatism over principles. Saudi Arabia is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been accused by the U.S. of approving the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. For their part, UAE and Saudi leaders remain reluctant to assist the U.S. after Washington’s tepid response to missile strikes against Saudi oil sites by Iran-supported Houthi militants in Yemen in 2019. When he ran for president, Biden pledged to treat the Saudi regime as a “pariah state.” However, the U.S. now needs help from the Gulf states, and needs to find the right diplomatic carrot to secure it. Without it, the West risks allowing Putin to extend his ambitions beyond Ukraine.
It’s clear that Putin has decided to go all-in. On Friday, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the United Nations of Washington’s concern about the Russian leader turning to either chemical or biological weapons in his bid to seize Ukraine. Taking such a diabolical course would dramatically escalate the crisis into harrowing, uncharted waters.
The war hasn’t gone well for Putin, and increasingly it looks like he has convinced himself he cannot afford to lose. Western leaders gave him off-ramps before the invasion, and Putin charged past them. Putin is now behaving like he will employ any means necessary to win.
While the U.S. and its allies must take care not to be goaded by Putin into wider conflict, they also cannot allow him to achieve his aims. America must also double down by turning the screws economically on the Russian leader, and dramatically ramping up the military aid Ukrainian forces desperately need to defend their homeland. This Putin-created crisis has upended the global community’s sense of security. The world cannot allow it to get exponentially worse.
