Steadily, ominously, the stakes are rising in the confrontation that Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has provoked with the west. Russia’s state energy company Gazprom halted gas supplies to two EU member states – Poland and Bulgaria – on Wednesday and warned that more countries could be similarly targeted. Poland, with good reason, described this as a “direct attack”. Moscow is also talking darkly of delivering a “proportionate response” to the demonisation of Russia by western governments. On Tuesday, Mr Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused Nato of “engaging in a war with Russia through a proxy”. The risk of nuclear escalation, he said, was becoming “considerable”.
Economic warfare and apocalyptic threats can be read as signs of Russia’s bitter frustration at the way events have unfolded since February. The scale and practical value of western solidarity with Ukraine – in the form of sanctions, financial aid and military assistance – have come as an unpleasant surprise to the Kremlin. The humiliating failure of Mr Putin’s initial plan to capture Kyiv and topple the Ukrainian government was down to the bravery and skill of those who fought to defend their country. But external military assistance was crucial in giving the country’s armed forces sufficient means to resist.
As the focus of the Kremlin’s campaign shifts to the eastern Donbas region and southern Ukraine, that support is continuing and adapting to the likely circumstances of a more attritional phase of the war. The US has announced a £600m package of military and financial aid that will include more advanced western weapons as well as non-Nato ammunition for Soviet-made tanks and artillery. Britain has indicated that it may send howitzers and anti-aircraft systems. Despite a previous reluctance to directly supply heavy weaponry, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has now approved the delivery of German tanks to Ukraine, though it is unclear how soon they will be usable.
Helping Ukraine defend itself is the right thing to do. But as the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, calls for western powers to escalate intervention still further and provide fighter jets to Ukraine, Mr Scholz’s initial reservations are worth recalling. In an interview with Der Spiegel, he argued that “everything must be done to avoid a direct military confrontation between Nato and a highly armed superpower like Russia”. So far, the west has managed to balance caution and assistance to good effect, emphasising the defensive nature of the support it has offered Kyiv. But there are some signs, rhetorically at least, of needless escalation. In a press conference earlier this week, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, appeared to expand Washington’s objectives beyond the defence of Ukraine to weakening Russia’s capacity for future aggression and strengthening Nato. Already implicit in America’s actions, this would have been best left unsaid.
Equally, to “double down” in the way Ms Truss proposes would ratchet up the risks in a context that is becoming more, not less, volatile – as recent explosions in Transnistria, a pro-Russian separatist region of Moldova, testify. If the UK goes down this path, it should only be after the fullest consultation with parliament and an honest public debate about the dilemmas and uncertainties involved. Russia’s nuclear threats are a sign of the Kremlin’s desperation, but they also illustrate the frighteningly high stakes in the most serious conflict on European soil since the second world war.
