MAINTAIN PRESSURE ON VLADIMIR PUTIN TO AVOID ESCALATION
These calculations make it clear that Ukraine will continue to do everything possible to defend these territories.
The West will need to continue to support these efforts and will need to do more and faster for its strategy of proactive containment – preventing a spillover of the war into neighbouring countries and gradually diminishing Moscow’s capacity to fight and hold territory in Ukraine – to continue to work.
The West’s programme of sanctions needs to be expanded – especially when it comes to Russian oil and gas. The supply of military equipment needs to be stepped up to enable Ukraine to resist and eventually push back Russian invaders.
This is not free of risks and costs for either Ukraine or its Western partners. Russia is likely to further increase its air attacks and possibly expand its list of targets, especially along the Black Sea coast, as has been obvious with the recent missile attack on Odesa.
Toughening the sanctions regime will hurt the West as well. But the alternatives are worse. Not only for Ukraine, but also for Moldova.
A Russian success along the lines of its declared goals of the so-called second stage of its aggression against Ukraine will also make direct confrontation between NATO and Russia more likely.
And it would almost certainly encourage Putin to try to achieve by force what he failed to gain in his proposed new NATO-Russia agreement of December 2021: The withdrawal of NATO forces from the territories of all 14 states that joined the alliance since the end of the cold war.
Stopping Putin in Ukraine is the only realistic way to avoid a tragedy of even greater proportions and the spread of the conflict to a second country. The sooner the West realises this and acts accordingly, the greater the likelihood of effectively containing Russia and preserving the possibility of future peace and stability in Ukraine and beyond.
Stefan Wolff is a Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham and Tatyana Malyarenko is a Professor of International Relations at the National University Odesa Law Academy. This commentary first appeared on The Conversation.
