Reading Vladimir Putin’s mind is notoriously difficult. But watching his latest video address, devoted to the aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines catastrophe, I was struck by his appearance. The video was recorded hurriedly, at 1.40am, straight after Putin had been subjected to a barrage of not-very-diplomatic telephone calls from world leaders, threatening reprisals if he did not force his proxies in eastern Ukraine to act in a civilised manner regarding the victims of MH17.
No Botox could hide the bags under his eyes, nor powder his sweating skin, and his demeanour suggested he was fizzing with rage. I suspect his fury is aimed not only at the Ukrainian government, which he continues to blame for creating the situation that led to the downing of the jet, and not only at the West for demonising him as a monstrous killer, but also at the band of rag-tag Russian separatist gangsters whose sheer incompetence has landed him in such deep ordure.
It is, of course, an ordure of his own making. The rebels in eastern Ukraine took their lead from Putin’s annexation of Crimea. They derive succour from the Russian media and they are fighting for a cause Putin backs. His security services provide intelligence and military supplies — including, most likely, the Buk missile that brought down the plane.
Whatever theories the Russian media may be spreading about Ukraine’s responsibility for the disaster, Putin himself must know the truth — that the bandits operating in his name are responsible. The fact that they did it by mistake only makes things worse. It turns out that the Kremlin handed missiles to a bunch of drunken, gun-toting hotheads, incapable of doing what anyone with a smartphone app can do — identify a plane flying overhead.
This is not what Putin wants to align himself with and I suspect he has had fears about the leaders of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” all along. Back in May, he asked them to postpone their referendum on independence and when they went ahead with it, he declined to recognise its results. The fact is, Putin does not want the Russian-speaking regions to break away from Ukraine. He has always spoken in favour of a federalisation of the country, which would guarantee the language and civil rights of Russians living there. This in itself is enough to infuriate Kiev, which sees the demand as interference in its internal affairs or as the thin end of a wedge. However, the suggestion itself is not unreasonable. And it could provide the kind of get-out clause that would prevent the current terrifying situation from careering out of control.
The West needs to put pressure on Putin — but it needs to be the right kind of pressure. If there is one thing I took away from three years of working closely with Kremlin officials, it was that Putin detests being lectured by outsiders and tends to react badly to all criticism. There is not a single instance of his bowing to criticism by doing what the West demanded. There are plenty of instances of his doing the opposite. So British Prime Minister David Cameron was right to combine his threats of further sanctions with a recognition that “there must be protections for Russian-speaking minorities” in Ukraine.
Putin must be looking, desperately, for a way to save face. If the MH17 trail leads, as it surely will, back to the rebels, he may disown them and say it had nothing to do with Russia itself. The trick then will be for the West to steer him towards real engagement by promising constitutional talks with Ukraine, provided he takes resolute action to kick out the separatists — who, he has now discovered, are nothing but a liability.
Putin could well be president for the next 10 years and we cannot afford a decade of Cold War. It is time to swallow hard and bring the region’s dominant powerbroker inside the tent, to help ensure the integrity of Ukraine — and peace in Europe.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Angus Roxburgh is a former consultant to the Russian government and author of The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia.
