One, this fits with a number of administration backers who claim success because Putin "just" got Crimea while we "got" the rest of far larger Ukraine, but which ignores that round one is not the entire game. Or was Chamberlain right to claim "peace for our time" when Hitler "just" got the Sudetenland while the West retained the rest of productive Czechoslovakia?
And it treats Ukraine like a prize to be measured as if it is not a sovereign nation of actual people free to make their own choices. It would also mean that you'd have to still judge us the victor if Russia had actually taken eastern Ukraine since the majority of GDP and people would still be in free Ukraine.
Further, you have to ignore that the glorious multilateral coalition that resisted Putin failed to prevent Putin from taking Crimea despite the fact that the United Nations in general prohibits that and requires the glorious international community to fight such aggression to restore national sovereignty.
And you have to ignore that specifically the Budapest Memorandum multilaterally required Russia, America, and Britain to guarantee Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Further, you have to believe that the weak sanctions we multilaterally imposed on Russia were the decisive factor that stayed Putin's hand.
I've argued that if Ukrainian will to resist held firm that Putin's military is not capable of taking and pacifying even eastern Ukraine let alone large chunks of eastern and southern Ukraine.
I argued that a successful May 25 election could demonstrate that will to resist and be the turning point of the crisis over eastern Ukraine.
Austin Bay commented on the election impact:
Though not a decisive political victory, the election may prove to be "just enough of a win" to thwart the Kremlin. Conducting successful nation-wide elections, despite turmoil exacerbated by Russian agents and propagandists, demonstrated Ukrainian institutional strength. ...
The great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz wrote that at its most fundamental human-level war is a clash of wills. Will to resist expressed with ballots can quickly translate into sustained resistance -- with bullets, if necessary.
Unfortunately, bullets are necessary. And bullets are flying.
In the aftermath of the successful May 25 election that had both high turnout (despite almost complete lack of cooperation in the east) and a clear winner, Petro Poroshenko, Russia appears to be standing down their conventional invasion threat:
Russia has withdrawn most of its troops from the Ukrainian border, but seven battalions, amounting to thousands of men, remain, a U.S. defense official said on Friday.
Yet the fighting in the east continues and Russia's hand in that is obvious:
Ukraine's armed forces suffered devastating new losses Thursday, underlining the scale of the challenge the country faces in quelling a guerrilla-style insurgency that has proven to be agile and ruthless.
A rebel rocket attack brought down a military Mi-8 helicopter ferrying out troops, including a general, on the outskirts of Slovyansk, killing at least 12 people onboard.
Russia simultaneously insists that Ukraine not apply military force to the separatists while providing the separatists with military assets that require a Ukrainian military response to defeat:
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday denounced the use of aircraft and artillery against the rebels and demanded that Kiev end a "fratricidal war and launch a real political dialogue with all political forces and representatives of the regions." ...
The Kiev government condemns the insurgency as the work of "terrorists" bent on destroying the country and accuses Russia of fomenting it.
So much for the multilateral success even on President Obama's terms. Putin's subliminal invasion round 2 failed and his military isn't good enough to achieve a rapid victory over a determined Ukraine, so Putin decides to deny Ukraine a clean victory by supporting the minority separatists with arms and personnel and denying that Ukraine is a sovereign state free to choose its future path.
Ukraine is faced with a fight it must win:
Ukrainian forces will press ahead with a military offensive against rebels in the east until peace and order have been restored there, Ukraine's acting defense minister said on Friday.
Let's hope Ukraine doesn't need more than MREs and camping gear from us to win that fight.
And while Ukraine can defeat these separatists, Russia is not done with Ukraine, which Russia continues to view as a lost province that must be reclaimed when Russia rebuilds their military some more.
Do not doubt that the struggle is not over as far as Putin is concerned:
Reports by Ukrainian border authorities and journalists on the ground now appear to show increasing evidence of direct involvement by volunteer fighters from Russia in the rebellions that erupted two months ago in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
According to these reports, fighters may be coming into Ukraine from former hotspots in Russia and its North Caucasus fringes such as Chechnya whose own troubles in the past 20 years have spawned a proliferation of armed groups.
Ukraine's authorities say Russian border guards are doing nothing to stop fighters crossing the long land border from Russia, along with truck loads of ammunition and weapons.
In the latest such report, Ukrainian border guards said on Friday they had seized a cache of weapons including guns, machine-guns, grenade-launchers, sniper rifles and 84 boxes of live ammunition in two cars they stopped as they crossed from Russia.
Ah, revel in the multilateralism of Russians and Chechens fighting inside Ukraine!
In the meantime, Russia has cemented their control of Crimea and is making sure trained troops from Crimea don't get second thoughts about joining Russia.
In our self-congratulatory mood of proclaiming "mission accomplished" over Ukraine, our president does remember that Russia's sublminal invasion, conquest, and annexation of Crimea began the crisis, doesn't he?
