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Michael McFaul

Houghton Mffiin Harcourt

Boston " l{ew York

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ANNEXATION AND WAR IN UKRAINE

f he conflict that would redefine an entire region - and permanently end the

I Reset - began while I was on the plane home from Moscow. Putin first an- ':red Crimea on March 74,2014, then doubled down in support of the separat-

:. rrrov€rr€flt in eastern Ukraine.

The invasion and the escalation of violence may have come as a shock to .any, but the political fight over Ukraine had been percolating during my en,

:e time as ambassador. If Iran, Syria, arms control, and human rights issues

:ped our list of agenda items with Russia while I was ambassador, Putin's

: foreign policy priority during these same years was something completely

- ferent: the creation of a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Russiat counter the European Union. From Putin's point view, Berlin anchored and donr- :ted the economies of Europe through the EU; in turn, Moscow could and

luld do the same rvith the states of the former Soviet Union (excluding the .itic states, which had already joined the EU).

Moscowt efforts to lasso the states that had gained independence after the .lapse of the Soviet Union and corral them into the EEU rarely made the radar our top foreign policy makers, and Putin wanted to keep it that way. From . perspective, the EEU was none of our business. Internally, we debated how :rcive were the terms of membership in this Kremlin-created club. Given the

.red histories and geography of former Soviet states, an internationai organi- .:ion that increased trade and investment between these countries could make

.,,nomic sense. However, Russia's hegemonic position within the EEU allowed

-'i-S4{x,rt'f,t" to"

394 FRoM C(ILD WAR T0 H(}T PEACE

) Moscow to dictate, not negotiate, the rules of this new organization, while Ru,

sia's imperial traditions raised suspicions in our government about the virtu.

of the new Kremlin initiative. In December 2A12, Secretary Clinton bluntli'a: -

unexpectedly labeled the effort "a move to re-Sovietize the region"-a co:.

ment for which Lavrov berated me when I saw him shortly thereafter. Althou-

her quip went too far, it did clari$, our position internally. We did not have : - ,

focus or means to actively resist the EEU, but we were also not going to celeb:.- ,

its development.

Belarus and Kazakhstan were logical candidates for membership in the E: -

as they already had joined a customs union with Russia. But the real prize , "

Ukraine, with its nearly forty-five million consumers for Russian imports. -

economy that dwarfed the economies of Belarus and Kazakhstan combi:. -

and a wealth of opportunities for Russian investment. Ukraine's member.,-

was the linchpin to the EEU's future. Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukor-. "'

flirted with joining Putin's club, but also negotiated with officials from Bru:..

about signing an association agreement with the European Union. The l:. ,

infuriated Putin. He had helped Yanukor,ych become president; now \{-aj

moment to return the favor. Because he believed that Ukrainians and Rus.-:"

were "fundamentally a single people," Putin scoffed that all the "emotiona -- "

turbulent discussions" about signing an association agreement would evc- --

ally give way to more rational, natural economic ties between the two S.-

nations.2

With increased intensity in the fall of 2013, the Russian government be:.' ' "

the Europeans and Americans for attempting to peel Ukraine away frorn . - sia's orbit. Putin urged Yanukor.ych to consider the negative economic rep.- - "

sions of uniting with Europe, asking rhetorically, "How would Ukraine b;- ,

from joining the EU? Open markets? Well, this would make the econom\- ::

liberal. But I have no idea whether Ukrainet economy can cope with sut:, '

eralism."3 Russian officials also warned Yanukovych that the Europeans ' ,

not serious about seeing Ukraine join their club. They d be waiting to itr---

decades, just like the Turks.

In my official talking points about these dueling courtships, I reminCt: ::

Russian counterparts that the United States was not a member of the E L' ',

"

played no role in these negotiations. I also emphasized that these comPet-:.

fers need not be zero-sum; many countries, including the United States, er.l:'" : -

AI{NEXATI(lN AND WAR IN UI(RAINE " 395

rnto multiple trade organizations and treaties. So could Ukraine, We also sug-

:ested that Ukraine could become more prosperous through closer association

..'ith EU members (even without EU membership), which would create more

rpportunities for Russian investment and trade with Ukraine. Everyone could ',r-in.

During a one-on-one conversation on this subject, First Deputy Prime Min- ,ster Igor Shuvalov remarked that he could not tell whether I sincerely believed

.n this win-win optimism, or was just reading myWashington-generated talking :oints designed to trick Russia. But Putin was having none of it. Moscow was

.^ring to play hardball. The battle for Ukraine was a zero-sum contest, with win- :.ers and losers, and Putin was determined to win.

Analytically, our team at the embassy agreed with Shuvalov. The stakes were

:.igher for him; Putin needed Ukraine for his EEU to succeed, while Ukraine -.eld no similar value for the European Union. What EU countries, after all,

:eally wanted Ukraine to join? The EU faced enough problems already, with- " ut tackling the difficult, controversial project of adding another fifty million :elatively poor people into its ranks. Yanukorych also faced reelection in 2015.

::gning an association agreement would require Ukraine to undertake unpopu-

.r reforms just a year before the election. He would never do that. The EU also

';as insisting that Yanukorych release from prison Yulia Tymoshenko, the for- :er prime minister, whom eyeryone in the West considered a political prisoner.

lhat was a high price for the insecure Ukrainian president on the eve of a pres-

:ential election. And Moscow offered Yanukor,ych serious money not to sign

:ie EU agreement-money that he needed for his reelection campaign. The

:::dgame seemed clear: Yanukolych would continue the bidding war to secure

.' much financial support as he could from Moscow while postponing signing - .e association agreement until a later date, sometime after his reelection.

Those Europeans pressing Yanukolych to sign the association agreement -:d a different assessment.a They believed that Yanukovych saw the bene- -:s of choosing their rich European Union over Putin's beleaguered Eurasian

--:onomic Union.s To make things easier for the Ukrainian president, the EU -:gotiators eventually agreed to Tymoshenko's release for medical treatment

- Germany, with the assumption that she would never return to Ukraine, a

'.;e-saving compromise. Especially after this final compromise, EU negotiators

. :essed for a signing date of November 28, 2013, at the EU's Eastern Partnership

396 FRtlM C()LD WAR Ttl H(lT PEACE

Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. I, along with several others in our goYernment'

still worried that the slippery Yanukovych would renege, but also didnt think

it would be a major tragedy if he postponed signing the agreement. Everl'thing

in the EU and diplomacy more generally, after all, is about process. The end o:

one failed negotiation is simply the opportunity to start a new one; no big deai

A week before the Vilnius summit, Yanukolych announced that he was no:

ready to sign, asserting that there were "several crucial steps left to be made''

Our European partners were upset, and made a last-minute attemPt in Vilniu'

to cajole Yanukolych to reconsider.T Those in our government following thest

negotiations also were disheartened, but I dont recall any senior U'S' officia'

losing much sleep over the signing delay. We had dozens of foreign policy issuri

of higher importance on the agenda at the time.

Some days later, I met with First Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov on anothe:

matter, but seized the opportunity to congratulate him on Russia's diplomat:

victory. That's what diplomats do. In defeat, we congratulate the victor' Shu'

valov lamented the price tag- $15 billion-but explained that the boss wante : this one badly.s At the time, I thought the Russians had won the battle but wou':

still lose the war. After presidential elections, Ukraine would be back at the n:'

gotiating table, or so i believed at the time. Time was on our side.

Others in Kyiv were not so willing to wait. To me, Yanukor'7ch's decisic:

was just a bump in the long road toward Ukrainian integration into Europe' ' '

the young, principled Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nalyem, Yanukorych's i': cision amounted to treason. That day, Nalyem stopped reporting the news ar:

began to make it. On Facebook, he blasted Yanukor,Tch for betraying the E;'

ropean aspirations of the Ukrainian people and called upon his virtual frien;'

to "be serious . . . If you really want to do something, dont just 'like' this po':

Write that you are ready, and we can try to start something." In a later Faceboc i

post, he called upon his readers to "meet at 10:30 p.m' near the monument :

independence in the middle of Maidanl'e Others made similar pleas, promPti-- ' thousands and then tens of thousands to show up. Within days, a massive croru':

occupied the square, in what looked like a replay of the Orange Revolution a c:

cade earlier. |ust as in the Arab world in 2011 and Russia in20ll-12, democra:''

activists were taking a stand - and in so doing, inadvertently and unintentio:

ally injecting themselves into U.S.-Russia relations.

In response, Yanukorych vacillated between conciliation and confrontatic:

ANNE)(AIIt)N AND WAR IN UI(RAINE 397

-' nrst ignoring the protesters in the hopes that the winter cold would chase

.m off the streets, but then ordering the police to clear the square. When

-ages ofpolice beating peaceful protesters triggered even bigger crowds, Yanu-

.r'ch backed off- at least for a time. After the New Year, he reverted to con- - ,ntation, floating legislation that made blockading public buildings punish-

. - -e by up to five years in prison and allowed for the arrest of protesters wearing ' .sks or helmets.lo |ust a few weeks later, however, his government agreed to

- 'e amnesty to all demonstrators who vacated occupied government buildings

J stopped blocking streets.

The Kremlin grew exasperated with Yanukor.lrch's vacillations. They wanted ':ir guy in Kyiv-the guy they had helped bring to power in 2010-to act

,.:isively. During a meeting with Lavrov in February 2014,he asked me hlpo- .tically what the United States government would do if protesters occupied a

:eral building in downtown Washington. He didnt wait to hear the end of my

. rvoluted answer. I recall him saying bluntly, You would use force to remove ' :m. He was probably right.

Our administration advocated a different approach to the standoff in ,.raine. We engaged with both the government and the demonstrators to try ind a peaceful way to defuse the crisis. In Washington, Vice President Biden

ed Yanukovych several times during those volatile days, urging him to resist

rg force and instead negotiate with the protesters. On the ground in Kyiv,

-: new ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt, maintained close contact with leaders in - : gov€rnment and on the street. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and

,:asian Affairs Victoria Nuland also traveled to Kyiv to conduct shuttle diplo- :.\r between the government officials and the demonstrators. American and

.:opean diplomats worked in tandem to try to defuse the standoff. Our aim '] -. not regime change but a peaceful resolution to the crisis. v

l heir efforts became more urgent after violence erupted between Ukrainian ' .-ce and protesters on February 18,2014. To this day, the facts of who did what

'.'hom and when remain murky. We know that pro-Yanukor,ych snipers shot

: killed innocent protesters. We also know that the clashes Ieft several police

--:ers dead.lrWe do not know for sure who shot first. Ukrainian authorities es-

' ated that thirty-nine had been killed; the opposition put the death toll closer ,ne hundred.l2 Obama issued a statement the next day, condemning "in the

' ngest terms the violence thats taking placei'l3 The president explained that

398 FRtlM C()LD WAR Tt) H()T PEACE

the U.S. had been deeply engaged "with our European partners as well as i:, Ukrainian government and the opposition to try to ensure that that violen:.

endsl"a By adding that phrase about the opposition, we implied subtly that bo'--

sides had contributed to this tragedy. But Obama placed most of the blame . -

Yanukorych: "We hold the Ukrainian government primarily responsible :-' making sure that it is dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate rr:

that the Ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak freely about their :'-

terests without fear of repressionl'1s We then promised to work with both sic. '

to end the violence.

A few days later, on February 21, I was back in Sochi for the closing c.r

emony of the Winter Olympics when my BlackBerry lit up with good ne"" '

President Yanukorlzch and the opposition had signed an agreement' Spec:'

cally, after meeting overnight with European officials, the president had agre. -

to an accord to resolve the political crisis with three opposition leaders: \-i:: Klitschko, Oleh Tyahnybok, and Arseniy Yatsenl'uk. These signatories agr..-

to "refrain from the use ofviolence"'6 and have their supporters hand over :

illegal weapons within twenty-four hours, and in return the Ukrainian gove:-

ment was to lift the state of emergency. The agreement also called for the r.' toration of the 2004 constitution, which limited the powers of the preside:'

and for an early presidential election no later than December 2014. Signator--'

expressed "their intention to create a coalition and form a national unitl- gr

ernment" within twelve days of the agreement's signing. Three European i '

eign ministers-Radek Sikorski from Poland, Frank-Walter Steinmeier fr- - Germany, and Laurent Fabius from France-also signed the agreement, ir. '- effort to bolster its legitimacy.

Vladimir Lukin, Putin's ombudsman for human rights, represented Russr" .

the mediation efforts. I thought Putint decision to send Lukin in Lavrovt p,.',

was an odd choice, but better than having no Russian representation. \\-i:.:

Lukin didnt sign the agreement like the other foreign ministers, however, i :', came worried. Maybe Putin was not going to support the accord because he r'-'-

other plans?

Several hours after signing the agreement, Yanukolych fled Kyiv, boun;- '-

around between several cities in Ukraine before ending up in the provincial ; -

of Rostov, Russia. In defending his decision to leave the country, Yanukor-'-r

said that he feared for his life.

ANNEXATI(lN AND WAR IN UKRAINE 3gg

By a margin of 328-0, Ukraine's parliament, the Rada, voted to impeach Ya-

:ukor.ych for fleeing the country, and then designated its newly elected speaker,

lleksandr Turchynorl as interim president until a new election could be held

:r May. Ukraine's had no for this impeachment Yote,

:ut Rada argued they had no choice could not govern

, kraine from Rostov. A few months later, on May 25,2014, Ukrainians went to

re polls and elected Petro Poroshenko as president.

Many in oLrr government, as well as our allies in European capitals, cele-

:rated Yanukovych's departure. The protesters had won. Having squandered

. pportunities alter independence in i991, and again after the Orange Revolu-

.:on in 2004, Ukraine now had a third chance to build a democracy with a firm rientation toward Europe.

I normally admire such displays of popular power. In my White House of-

'.ce, we celebrated the fall of Mubarak in Eglpt back in 2011. This moment in -,-kainian

history, however, felt precarious. I exchanged upbeat emails with a

:.rr, government counterparts and admired the courage of the Maidan demon- ..rators, some of whom I knew personally. But I also was confused. As I watched

:':nukovych's press conference in Rostov from my hotel room in Sochi, I won-

:ered why the Ukrainian president had not ensconced himself somewhere in

:rstern Ukraine and campaigned to consolidate his authority as the country's

..ected president. Why did he not go to Moscow? Why was he hiding out in -.eepy Rostov? But my biggest worry was Putin. There was no way the Russian

. :esident was going to stand passively on the sidelines as his man in Kyiv was '.ren down by pro-European protesters in events reminiscent of the Orange

, evolution. He was going to strike back. While I was still in Sochi, I got together

:th Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, who was leading the U.S. delegation

. the closing ceremony, to compare notes. We agreed that we should brace

:rselves for a strong Putin reaction. We reached out to the Kremlin to try to ar- '.rge a meeting between Burns and Putin, but the Kremlin predictably refused

:r request. We considered suggesting another Obama-Putin phone call, but no

,-,e could figure out a script. What would Obama say? "Sorry"?

\Ve did not have to wait long for Putin's response, The Kremlin immediately

:.nounced the new Ukrainian government's members as illegitimate usurpers.

:en Russia annexed Crimea. For a few days, Putin successfully kept the initial

" -ases of this operation secret. Within our government, however, we already

400 FR(lM CtlLIl WAR Ttl H(lT PEACE

had discussed this scenario. On February 23, 2014, National Security Advi-

sor Susan Rice decided to publicly discourage Russian intervention, warning

that "it would be a grave mistake" for Putin to send soldiers into Ukraine.:-

Obviously, Rice wouldnt have made that statement unless she knew Putin

was making preparations to do exactly that- send soldiers to Ukraine. A fert

days later, confused reports appeared in the media about "little green men"

-Russian-speaking armed soldiers taking up positions at strategic places on

the peninsula. The soldiers, who lacked insignia, first took control of the local

parliament and then began seizing other strategic facilities. Ukrainian militan

personnel quickly dispersed. For the new leadership in Kyirl it was a humiliat-

ing deGat. As usual, Putin had struck back in an asymmetric way.

At a news conference in Moscow in early March, Putin still denied that the

soldiers on the ground in Crimea were Russian soldiers, calling them "loca-

self-defense unitsl'l8 At the same conference, however, he asserted that any Rus-

sian involvement in Crimea would be a "humanitarian mission" to protect eth-

nic Russians, and that if Russia were to use force, it would be "in full complianc'

with general norms of international law."'e

Referring to Western powers' reaction to Russia's actions, Putin argued, "\\ t

are often told our actions are illegitimate, but when I ask, 'Do you think everr'-

thing you do is legitimate?'they say'yesi Then, I have to recall the actions of tl. United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, where they either acted withou:

any UN sanctions or completely distorted the content of such resolutions, a-'

was the case with Libyal"o It was the classic whataboutism I endured every niei--:

on Twitter from pro-Kremlin bloggers and bots. On April 17, 2014,two montl.

after the operation began, Putin finally admitted, "Crimean self-defense force.

were of course backed by Russian servicemenl2l

I have often wondered about Putin's decision making on the day that Yanu

korych fled Ukraine. He most likely was surrounded by a small group of h-''

closest friends and advisors, mostly former or current intelligence officers. \: one from his economic team would have been Present. It was the last days of r: Sochi Olympics, so Putin and his inner circle must have been all pumped up c':

nationalism; Russia was leading the medal count (with, as we know now sor::

major help from a government-organized, performance-enhancing-drugs pr'''

gram). Putin must have been fuming, blaming us for the revolution that ouste:

ANNEXATI()N AI{D WAR IN UI(RAINE 401

- :korych; he said as much subsequently. His media channels explicitly la- , .i the U.S. as the real plotter of the coup, with the Ukrainian people just ' rq upon our instructions.22 I am guessing he believed the CIA had once

- --i overthrown an anti-American regime, just as he thought they had in Tu-

.. Egypt, and Libya in 201i, and tried to do against him in 20ll-12. After we

..ed1y toppled his ally in Ukraine, Putin was done worrying about what we

-eht of him or how we could cooperate on other issues. In his view, we were . seizing control of a country of vital strategic importance to Russia, a coun-

:rat Putin didnt even think should exist independent of Russia. Ukraine

-.d become a member of NATO - or so Putin irrationally might have be-

.d - and thereby threaten many Russian interests, including Russia's naval

: rn Crimea. As he stated flippantly a few weeks later, "I simply cannot imag- : r.iat we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors."23 He was going to ' ,.: back boldly, even if it meant violating one of the most important norms of . :ost-World War II order.

- xtrary to Putin's accusations, the Obama administration did not orga-

. the Maidan protests. Ukrainians did that alone. And we did not seek Ya-

.rlch's overthrow; rather, we tried until the very last hours to forge a deal 'een the president and the protesters; even after Yanukor,ych had massacred

:ns of his citizens, we were still negotiating with him. But none of these facts

- :red to Putin. Even after Russia's military occupation of Crimea, Secretary '. held several rounds of talks with Lavrov to try to head off a complete an-

.:ion through a referendum. But Putin wanted no compromises. The fight . '--kraine

was another zero-sum struggle with the West. If he was going to

: .iis man in Kyiv, Putin was determined to win somewhere else in Ukraine.

r March 16, 2014, the occupying authorities held a referendum that asked

::sidents of Crimea if they wanted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. .-ape the electoral outcome, all Ukrainian television channels were taken :.e air, while stories of neo-Nazi putschists in Kyiv bombarded television

.rs from Russian channels, as did the specter of future violence against -.: Russians if the Ukrainian authorities came back to power on the pen-

.a.:r Armed Russian soldiers filled the streets and stood guard at major

::orn€flt buildings. Russia claimed that 83.1 percent of registered Crimean

::i turned out for this referendum; 96.77 percent voted to join Russia.25 At

402 FROM C(lLD WAR T(} H()T PEACE

the time, Crimea's ethnic Russian population was estimated to be around 6,_

percent, meaning that huge majorities of ethnic Ukrainian and Tatar citizens o.

Crimea aliegedly voted in support of annexation as well.

Curiously, Putin's own organization, the President of Russia's Council o: Civil Society and Human Rights, published radically different results on iti website, reporting that turnout was well below 50 percent and that only aroun; half of voters supported "unificationl'the Russian euphemism for annexation -'

But this report did not stay on the website for very long. Later that day, putr:

formally reco gnized the referendum results, and a few days later Crimea and S..

vastopol were formally incorporated into Russia. Putin emotionally exclaimec 'After a long, hard and exhausting voyage, Crimea and Sevastopol are returnirr to their harbour, to their native shores, to their home port, to Russia!"27

Only a day out of government when the world learned of putin's annexati.. campaign, I was still in close contact with many senior officials in the Oba;:_:

administration, and discussed in detail our possible responses. One first de:

sion was whether I should return to Moscow until a new ambassador had be. appointed. I considered the possibility, but quickly decided that my presence ,: Moscow at this juncture would make no difference. As an outsider now, I J..*

try to help shape the Obama administration's response to Russia's annexatior . "

Crimea, coming down firmly in favor of a strong and comprehensive reactir This moment was not just another bump in the road in U.S.-Russia relatio:, like Serbia in1999 or the Iraq War in 2003. Putin's intervention in Ukraine 11 :.

even qualitatively different from Russia's invasion of Georgia in August 2L - -

there was no debate about who started this confrontation, as there had he:: during the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. Moreover, Russia had never recogni:. -

Abkhazia and South Ossetia as part of Georgia, while the Kremlin, incluo:--. Putin himself on the record, had acknowledged the legitimacy of Ukraine! b , -

ders. As Putin stated in 2008, "Crimea is not a disputed territory. . . Russia ,-. long recognizedlhe borders of modern-day Ukraine."28 This was the first t::: territory had been annexed in Europe since World War iI. We had to respc, : vigorously, both to defend the norms of the international system and bec:_,, of our obligations to Ukraine. In1994 the United States, Russia, and the Un,:.1 Kingdom had signed the Budapest Memorandum, which committed sign:: ries to respect Ukrainian territorial integrity in return for Ukraine's denuc,: i-

AI{NEXATI(lN AND WAR IN Ut(RAINE 403

ration. The memorandum was not a treaty, and obviously, Russia had violated

:s terms, not us. Nonetheless, a weak response to Russian aggression would

'eaken America's credibility both with Ukraine and with other countries with .'hich we sought similar nonproliferation agreements. If we responded tepidly, '.'e rvere inviting more Russian aggression, both in Ukraine and maybe against

rr NATO allies, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. We had to make deterrence

-:edible.

In close cooperation with German chancellor Angela Merkel, President ,bama galvanized the international community to respond quickly and deci-

.r'ely. At the United Nations, most countries joined the United States in de-

runcing the annexation, a level of international support that the Bush admin- .:ration did not achieve when responding to the Russian invasion of Georgia

- August 2008. in a vote of one hundred in favor to eleven against, with fifty- :.qht abstaining, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the

-rimea referendum invalid.2e Russia, of course, vetoed a similar resolution in '.-.e UN Security Council. But thirteen other Security Council members voted in ',i-or, with only China abstaining. Obama and the other G-8 leaders also voted

kick Russia out of this international club, which Gorbachev and Yeltsin had ' ught so hard to join.3o

The most coercive and controversial action was the imposition of compre- -:nsive sanctions against Russian individuals and Russian companies involved

. the military operation in Crimea - an action I fully supported. In a memo '.\'rote to Dan Fried, then our point person on sanctions at the State Depart-

-:ent, I expressed my belief that we had to make Putin pay a price for invading

-'^raine, even if "at this stage in the crisis, sanctions [would be] unlikely to -:'.'crS€ a previous decision made by Putinl' In this memo, which I circulated to

:rers in the Obama administration, I proposed we impose sanctions against - Jividuals and entities that fell into the following categories: "(l) those directly -::ponsible for this military operation; (2) political leaders who supported the

:.r and who supported democratic crackdown to silence war critics; (3) chief

" :opagandists for the war; and (4) heads of state-owned enterprises, or com-

. .ries closely tied to the regime that indirectly financially support Putin and -.:s war effortl' I lobbied against sanctioning individuals and entities in the fol- :r'ing categories: "(l) government officials with whom the Obama administra- ,n has to continue to engage on matters of importance to U.S. foreign policy;

,t

404 FR()M CtltD WAR T(l H(lT PEACE

(2) political leaders who are critical of the war; (3) leaders of private compani., who do not appear to be supporting the warl'

My list of suggested individuals and companies was obviously longer ar; deeper than the categories that my former colleagues in the Obama admi::-

istration would eventually target through sanctions.3t On the outside again. -

could articulate grandiose objectives and goals, without trying to devise or ir:--

plement a strategy to achieve them. I remember how I had hated reading su;:

essays from our critics in the op-ed pages while in government - all goals an:

no strategies for reaching them. Now, I was back in that ivory-tower crowd. .

didnt like the feeling. I wished that I were back in the government.

Those closest to the issue in the Obama administration wanted to move tb:-

ward with comprehensive sanctions. But American sanctions alone would n.: credibly deter further Russian military actions. The Europeans had to be r..

board. So this transatlantic debate was resolved in favor of incrementalism. O:

March 20,2074, the administration imposed sanctions on twenty officials, i:,-

cluding senior Russian government officials and'tronies who hold significa:.-

resources and influence in the Russian systeml'32 In announcing this first rou::: of sanctions, the White House threatened to "impose additional costs," but c:: not specify whether these new sanctions would be levied in response to tu:.

ther Russian aggression or in the absence of Russian withdrawal from Crimr" Speaking in Brussels, Obama explained these sanctions as an effort to dete:.:

not just Ukraine, but also the postwar international norms and treaties that h": served the world so well: "If we defined our interests narrowly, if we appliec :

cold-hearted calculus, we might decide to look the other way. Our €coflorn\' .:

not deeply integrated with Ukraine's. Our people and our homeland face --,

direct threat from the invasion of Crimea. Our own borders are not threaten.:

by Russia's annexation. But that kind of casual indifference would ignore :. .

lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this continent. It would allorr-l:.. old way of doing things to regain a foothold in this young centuryl'33

Moscow reacted defiantly. "We warned many times that the use of sancti.

instruments is double-edged and will bounce back on the United Statesj' re :: a statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.3a The same day, Russ. "

issued travel bans on nine U.S. lawmakers and officials.3s I was especially dis:: pointed to see my former White House colleague Ben Rhodes on that list; ba:.

in 2009 Ben had been a vital champion of the Reset. Now he was banned tic:

ANNEXATI(lI{ AND WAR II{ UI(RAINE " 405

:iaveling to Russia. I was thankful not to see my own name on the list-that ,,'-ould come later.

In public, I applauded the Obama administration's decision, coordinated ,iith our European allies, to sanction Russian individuals and companies. It ,tas a bold move; the Bush administration had not sanctioned a single Russian

:erson or company after the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008.36 In :rivate, I urged my friends and colleagues in the Obama administration to do

:ore: not only to punish bad Russian behavior but to deter further aggression. I ,;orried that Putin's appetite for revenge against the new Ukrainian government .,;ould not be satiated by Crimean annexation alone.

Obama rightly diagnosed the magnitude of the moment. Putin's 'bld way of :oing things" was destabilizing, both for Ukraine and for the international sys-

.em. That said, Putin was not making rational cost-benefit calculations at that :oment; his choices were emotional and revenge-driven. In retrospect, I am -.ct sLrre that a different response from the United States and the international :,rmmunity would have worked any better. But what is certain is that the initial --.und of sanctions was insufficient to deter Putin from seeking more. Pleased

;ith the results in Crimea, Putin decided to green-light a complex plan to seize

l,ovorossiya, or New Russia, a vast region from eastern Ukraine to Odessa on -:-e Black Sea. As justification, Putin argued that he was simply protecting the '.ghts of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, asserting, "We must do every-

.--ing to help these people to protect their rights and independently determine ----eir own destinyJ'37 By invoking Novorossiya, a territory that had been incor- : rrated into Ukraine after the Bolshevik Revolution, Putin was deploying the .;me rationale for Russian interference in Ukraine that he had used for annex-

-E Crimea. As Putin explained, "Itt New Russia. Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk,

lessa were not part of Ukraine in czarist times; they were transferred in 1920. ',ay? God knows."38 Similar to Crimea, Putin seemed committed to right this

- ,'mmunist-era wrong and restore Russian imperial borders.

The Kremlin provided money, weapons, commanders, and even soldiers to .=:aratist proxies in eastern Ukraine.3e These Kremlin agents achieved quick '.:tories against Ukraine's military and local militias, seizing government build- -.gs in the eastern cities of Luhansk, Donetsk, and Kharkiv in early April2014.

-'-.rainian authorities were able to regain control of buildings in Kharkiv, but ,:ninistratiye buildings in Luhansk and Donetsk remained under the control

x

406 TR()M C(IID WAR Ttl H(lT PEACE

of pro-Russian groups.ao A month later, Russia used the same playbook in east-

ern Ukraine as in Crimea, holding "self-rule" referenda on secession (thougl:

not, in this case, "unification'with Russia). According to election organizers

89 percent of those who cast ballots in the Donetsk region and 96 percent o.

voters in neighboring Luhansk voted to leave Ukraine." The official number.

clashed radically with public opinion polls. In a Pew Research Center surve',

administered in mid-April in eastern Ukraine, 70 percent of respondents sail

they wished to remain part of a united Ukraine, while only 18 percent were i:-

favor of secession.a2 A poll released by the Kyiv International Institute of Socioi-

ogy based on data gathered in early to mid-April similarly found that only 1:

percent of respondents were in favor of seceding and joining Russia; 70 percer:.

were against.a3

The referenda resolved nothing. Conventional fighting continued. Pro-Ru.-

sian protests erupted sporadically in several cities, sometimes with tragic rt-

sults. In Odessa, for example, three dozen pro-Russian activists trapped in : locked government building that had been set on fire were shot at as they trie: to escape through the windows.aa Ethnic Russian militias also committed crirn;, against innocent ethnic Ukrainians. Ukraine was drifting toward civil war.

On |uly 17, 2014, the conflict internationalized even further. Russian-su:'

ported separatists or Russian soldiers - the details remain murky- shot doru:

Kuala Lumpur-bound Malaysia Airlines Flight tZ in eastern lJkraine, killing : 298 people on board. Although the actual shooter has not been identified, tl-..

Russian government clearly supplied the rocket used in this attack.a5 Putin c:.

nied responsibility, and instead argued, "The government over whose territc,:

it occurred is responsible for this terrible tragedy."a6 Putin put no pressure ; his proxies in eastern Ukraine to cooperate with an international investigati; -

-infuriating the Australians, the Dutch, the Malaysians, and other memt't:,

of the international community who had lost nationals on board the plane. T:, shooting down of MH17 focused greater world attention on the conflict in ea.:

ern Ukraine, prompting the West to react with greater vigor, including r-",

sanctions.aT

Putin's covert operation to seize Crimea began quietly before Ileft Mosc:-

but the world began to learn about Russian intervention in Ukraine the da',

arrived home. After seven months of 'tommuting" from Moscow to Palo n-:,

ANNEXATI()N ANB WAR IN UKRAINE 407

. t'as thrilled to be reunited with my family, but also deep,ly depressed to watch .ir relations with Russia now take an even sharper turn for the worse. And by

-,ur" I mean not only the Obama administration but also every administration ,.nce Reagan. Putin's decision to annex Ukrainian territory was a clear breach : the most basic of international norms. If there were a Ten Commandments : international behaviot "Thou shalt not annex the territory of thy neighbor" ould be at the top of the list. The project of democratic development inside

. .rssia had ended long ago, punctuated by two years of growing autocracy

-:ring Putin's third term as president. Now, the project of Russian integration :th the West, already deeply damaged, also came to a halt. The reset in rela-

rns between Washington and Moscow, first started by Reagan and Gorbachev,

d then resuscitated one last time by Obama and Medvedev, was dead, too. ",'er the last thirty years, I had believed in the possibility of Russian democracy d integration with the West. As an NGO activist and then as ambassador I

" .d not only believed in these goals but worked to achieve them. And now we

=re done. Our efforts had failed.

I was not a Cold Warrior itching to get back into the arena with a Kremlin

-','ersary; ever since my high school days debating lackson-Vanik, I had held a i-erent aspiration for our bilateral relationship. But Putint actions in Ukraine ,

npelled the United States and Europe to pivot to a fundamentally different :rtegy for managing relations with Russia. We were not returning to a Cold .r, but we were entering a new confrontational era, a hot peace. On March

,. 1014, I spelled out my proposed strategy in an essay 6. th;m, york Times ' :d "Confronting Putint Russial' I deiiberately echoed some, though not all,*-_ :**-

he themes of containment codified a half century earlier by George Kennan. :rv diagnosis of the problem, I summarized, in effect, the argument of this .'k: "The decision by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to annex Crimea :ed the post-Cold War era in Europe. Since the late Gorbachev-Reagan

. ,:s, the era was defined by zigzags of cooperation and disputes between Rus-

. :nd the West, but always with an underlying sense that Russia was gradually :-ing the international order. No more."a8 Instead of hoping that putin would .rlually come back to his senses and seek again to integrate with the West,

-=:lared that this project was over. In its place, I recommended a strategy of ::tive containment and selectivg eng:rgement, an update of the strategy I d :osed in 2012 of selective engagement and selective disengagement. In this

t a

I 1,

I

I I t

408 ' FR(}M CtlLD WAR T(l H(lI PEACE

new tragic moment in U'S'-Russian relations' we had to punish Russian bad be-

havior with coercive responses, such as sanctions and isolation; develop mean-

ingful methods of deterrence, like strengthening NATO; while continuing to

engage with proponents of democracy' including Ukrainian allies and Russian

society. Of course, as all American administrations had done during the Colo

War, we would have to work with Putin during this new era of hot peace when

our vital interests overlapped' But that seemed increasingly difficull Still' like

Kennan, I was confident that victory was certain-but not anytime soon' Tc

see the fruits of this new strategy would require patience'

The evening my proposal for a grand new strategy for dealing with Rus-

sia appeared on the New York Times website' I felt like I was departing fron:

long-held convictions' Before' I had believed in engagement and the promist

of Russian integration into the West' I had believed in the possibility of Russiar

democracy. Now, those things felt illusory and unachievable' at least for tht

foreseeablefuture'Ifeltlikelwasclosingachapter-athirty-yearchapter--t: my life. I knew that critics in both America and Russia would lambaste me t'c:

advocating dangerous, Cold War-era policies' But I was not the one who pir -

oted: Putin did, and we-had to respond'

24

THE ENII tlF RESE

f, t the Munich Security Cont'erer:;. ::: ! A ter Dmitry Medvedev made a Ir:S---:.:-

:olling into a period of a neu- cold '"-.r. :L

. . this 2016 or 1962?"1 Medveder- dei:b=::.:e

:.:e Soviet Union and the United Sia.:=: - :: a nuclear war. As I listened to his .:,=.i--

- relations between Russia and the U::::.i :e most certainly had to dig deep

'la;-< -:::

: :r of confrontation. If it was not a r-:'::- :-

. :erv hot peace. U.S.-Russia relation: :: 1,-.

,' S.-Soviet relations inl979, rghen I :-:': ;:. Later that day, in the crorvded i'"rn-s

:.rped out of the way to let lVledvece r' -j -i.eve, he stopped to sayhello anci cai;1 r; " :.ace hed visited in 2010, durins te g-r:

, , : \'€rI friendly, no hostile echoes oi i::e ( r : -,roks back on the early years of the Rei.e

- . :rnment, and likely his as rleil.

.1 senior U.S. government official ;r:-i

. led to chat. After the Russian pru:i =: ' =i me, "Who was that?"