Weapons, sanctions, gas: the levers in the conflict with Russia

Troops on the Ukraine border
Weapons, sanctions, gas: the levers in the conflict with Russia

Who sits where on which lever and who has the longest? The currently tense situation in Eastern Europe can best be summed up in these questions. On the one hand, Russia is sending soldiers to its western border, and since Tuesday also to Belarus. At the same time, the government in Moscow is demanding “security guarantees” from the West, which in turn looks rather confused and is discussing intentions and an appropriate reaction. So the fronts are relatively clear, but not how to proceed

The logic of saber rattling

One thing is certain: nobody officially wants war or any military action at all, but the logic of saber-rattling does not always follow wishes or reason. If one begins to arm himself for the conflict, the other feels provoked and also arms himself – it’s always the same cycle. At the moment there are essentially two camps in the camp of NATO and the European states: the hawks and the diplomats.

Germany is clearly one of the latter, as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) made clear during her first visit to Moscow. It is important that the so-called Normandy process is “revived” and that there is progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements, she said at a joint press conference with her Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov.

How much the Federal Republic wants to avoid even the appearance of wanting to go on a confrontational course was also noticeable during Baerbock’s visit to Ukraine the day before. Although the government in Kiev has been asking for weapons to defend it against a possible attack by Russia for years, the foreign minister only had another “no” in her diplomatic baggage.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz repeated the mantra after a conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also on Tuesday: “The German government has been pursuing a similar strategy on this issue for many years. And that also means that we don’t export any lethal weapons. That hasn’t changed changed with the change of government that took place in December last year.”

Weapons for Ukrainian self-defense

Great Britain is proceeding much more courageously. Amid tensions, the country has sent light anti-tank weapons to Ukraine. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said it was about improving Ukraine’s defense capabilities. “These are not strategic weapons and they pose no threat to Russia. They are intended to be used in self-defense.”

Among the countries calling for a tougher course is Latvia, which has long felt threatened by its neighbor to the east. President Egils Levits calls on the West to do more to counter Russia’s aggressive approach. That’s a cause for concern, Levits said, since there hasn’t been such a real threat of war since World War II. When Moscow argues that it feels threatened, one can only smile wearily. Levits explained that this was a “completely ridiculous pretext” to justify the aggression. “Nobody in Germany or in Latvia or in France and America believes that these states are planning an attack on Russia.”

The outgoing head of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, also recommends that the West take a tough stance. “We shouldn’t rule out anything and give the impression in Russia that those in the West don’t let themselves be trifled with either,” Ischinger told the Welt TV channel. “We need to achieve as much deterrence as possible.” Germany should “think about a program together with its partners in the EU or NATO that could strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities.”

But what exactly is deterrence? What should the defensive capability look like? Especially since US President Joe Biden has already made it clear that the US will not come to Ukraine’s military aid in the event of a war.

Which sanctions hurt the most?

In essence, the Americans, Europeans and NATO are planning economic and financial sanctions, export control measures and an armament of Ukraine in the event that the Russian military crosses borders. The discussion is about the exclusion of Russia from the Swift banking network. That would be the sharpest sword of sanctions and is already being used against Iran. Put simply, it means that financial institutions are decoupled from the international flow of money. Transferring money from abroad to a country then becomes more difficult. This can slow down the transport of goods because companies are then no longer able to pay for imports or post revenue for exports.

Critics of a Swift exclusion, such as CDU party leader Friedrich Merz, speak of a “nuclear bomb” for the capital markets. “We would also do ourselves considerable harm.” Excluding Moscow “would basically break the backbone of this international payment system.”

The proposal not to put the completed Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline into operation if Russia becomes militarily active in Ukraine is also controversial. So far, the SPD and the FDP in particular have viewed the gas pipeline as a “primarily private-sector project” that should not be drawn into the conflict. Most recently, however, Chancellor Scholz said that in the event of Russian aggression on sanctions, “everything really belongs on the table.” When asked about Nord Stream 2 in Moscow, Annalena Baerbock, who as a Green is opposed to the project, pointed out that energy should not be used as a weapon. The question is, however, whether Russia takes a similar view. The gigantic empire continues to be Germany’s most important energy supplier and, in view of the already sharp rise in energy prices, has the upper hand, at least in this respect.

Sources: DPA, AFP, “Southgerman newspaper“, Deutschlandfunk

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