Ukraine: Updates – The Moderate Voice

Update III:

Confirming a previous report (Update II), the Pentagon announced today that a dozen more F-16s and 300 personnel based at Aviano Air Base, Italy, will augment the U.S. aviation detachment at Lask Air Base, Poland.

Army Col. Steven Warren said that the 12 F-16 Fighting Falcons and associated personnel from the 555th Fighter Squadron at Aviano are expected to arrive in Poland by the end of the week. “It’s consistent with the enduring partnership between the U.S. and Poland. Augmenting this aviation detachment was a deliberate choice to demonstrate to our allies that U.S. commitments to our collective defense responsibilities are credible and remain in force. The work we’re doing with Poland does just that,” Warren said according to the Armed Forces Press Service.

In the meantime, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove said Tuesday that soldiers surrounding Ukrainian bases in Crimea are Russian forces, dismissing accounts that the troops are pro-Russia local militia, according to the Stars and Stripes.

The Stripes adds: “Breedlove said NATO experts have determined that the soldiers are Russian and will treat them as such.”

Finally, the Stripes says, “NATO has deployed E-3 AWACS reconnaissance aircraft to Poland and Romania to monitor the unfolding crisis in Ukraine.”

Read more here

Photo Update:

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun transits the Bosphorus Strait. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd class Scott Barnes

Sailors attached to the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun work alongside their Romanian counterparts on the ship’s bridge. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd class Scott Barnes

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Original post:

In addition to sending six F-15s and one KC-135 refueling tanker to augment the four F-15s currently participating in NATO’s air policing mission in the Baltics, the U.S. Navy is sending the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun (above)to the Black Sea to conduct combined training and theater security cooperation engagements with Romanian and Bulgarian Naval forces, according to U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa.

While in the Black Sea, the ship will conduct a port visit and routine, previously planned exercises with allies and partners in the region. Truxtun’s operations in the Black Sea were scheduled well in advance of her departure from the United States.

“The U.S. Navy is committed to helping enhance the security and stability of all European and African Nations, and our forward-presence, activities and engagements in this region are routine,” says the Navy.

In the meantime, the Obama administration is ordering a series of financial sanctions targeting individuals and corporations in Ukraine and Russia — people and organizations “responsible for activities undermining democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine; threatening the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine; contributing to the misappropriation of state assets of Ukraine; or purporting to assert governmental authority over any part of Ukraine without authorization from the Ukrainian government in [Kiev].”

TIME:

The broad directive allows for sanctions on an array of individuals, from officials of the former Ukrainian government, to Russian government, military, and business leaders. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney warned in a statement “depending on how the situation develops, the United States is prepared to consider additional steps and sanctions as necessary.” The new sanctions follow on previous efforts to punish those responsible for human rights abuses in Ukraine during the months of protests that undermined the pro-Russian government.

And,

Obama has also ordered Secretary of State John Kerry to impose visa restrictions on officials and individuals found “responsible for or complicit in threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the White House said. A senior administration official said those penalties have already kicked in for some Ukrainian and Russian individuals, but would not provide a list. Officials said this week that any sanctions would not hit the top of the Russian government, President Vladimir Putin.

In response to the overwhelming vote by the Crimean parliament to join Russia and to hold a referendum for Crimea to separate from the rest of the Ukraine and become part of Russia, President Obama, speaking in the White House Briefing Room said the planned referendum violates international law and the Ukraine constitution, reiterated a series of steps Putin could take to “de-escalate” the conflict in the region and said that his administration and European nations were “moving forward together” to sanction Russia, namely officials behind the military move into Crimea. Read more here.

TIME, on the referendum:

The decision to hold a referendum comes as a force of more than 10,000 pro-Russian troops reportedly control all access to the peninsula and have blockaded Ukrainian military bases. While the troops are widely believed to be members of the Russian military – they are wearing Russian military uniforms with no insignia and are operating armored vehicles with Russian plates – the Russian government has denied that its troops are in Ukraine, saying they are “self-defense” units that do not answer to the Kremlin.

In the meantime, former statesmen are entering the fray.

In a Washington Post opinion piece, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger has advice for all sides.

For Russia, “Accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.”

For the West : “Understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country…” He cites history, religion, past battles for Russian freedom that took place on Ukrainian soil, the basing of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea, etc.

For the European Union: “Recognize that its bureaucratic dilatoriness and subordination of the strategic element to domestic politics in negotiating Ukraine’s relationship to Europe contributed to turning a negotiation into a crisis. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities.”

Kissinger also has advice for Putin: “[He] should come to realize that, whatever his grievances, a policy of military impositions would produce another Cold War.”

And for the United States, too: ”The United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught rules of conduct established by Washington. Putin is a serious strategist — on the premises of Russian history. Understanding U.S. values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point of U.S. policymakers.”

Emphasizing that the Ukrainians themselves are “the decisive element” and underscoring that “We should seek reconciliation, not the domination of a faction,” Kissinger outlines his four-point “notion of an outcome compatible with the values and security interests of all sides” and warns “If some solution based on these or comparable elements is not achieved, the drift toward confrontation will accelerate.”

Read these four elements and Kissinger’s entire excellent piece here.

David Ignatius spoke recently with Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates — who knows the Kremlin very well — seeking his perspective on the Ukraine crisis.

Ignatius writes: “What does Gates think about the Ukraine crisis? Distilled to its essence, his message would be the same as [Washington Senator Henry M.] Jackson’s: Cool it, especially when it comes to public comments.”

While Gates has been critical of Obama on other matters, he tells Ignatius that Obama is correct to avoid loose talk about military options. “I’d even be cautious about sending warships into the Black Sea,” he explains to Ignatius “It’s a threatening gesture, but if you’re not prepared to do something about it, it’s an empty gesture.”

On the criticism heaped on Obama by McCain and Graham, Ignatius recounts:

I asked Gates what he thought about the criticism of Obama by McCain and Graham. “They’re egging him on” to take actions that may not be effective, Gates warned. He said he “discounted” their deeper argument that Obama had invited the Ukraine crisis by not taking a firmer stand on Syria or other foreign policy issues. Even if Obama had bombed Syria or kept troops in Iraq or otherwise shown a tougher face, “he still would have the same options in Ukraine. Putin would have the same high cards.”

Gates, a Republican himself, urged the GOP senators to “tone down” their criticism and “try to be supportive of the president rather than natter at the president.”

Near the end of the conversation, Gates tells Ignatius “It seems to me that trying to speak with one voice — one American voice — seems to have become a quaint thing of the past. I regret that enormously.”

Finally, on the Ukraine crisis itself:

Gates explained in [the] telephone interview. Russian President Vladimir Putin “holds most of the high cards” in Crimea and Ukraine as a whole. U.S. policy should work to reinforce the security of neighboring states without fomenting a deeper crisis in which Putin will have the advantage.

Specifically, said Gates, the United States should help NATO allies such as Poland and the Baltic states enhance their readiness to resist any future Russian moves. The United States could encourage a rotation of NATO aircraft to beef up defenses on Russia’s border, for example. That’s the kind of power play that can check Putin, because it is realistic and sustainable.