For Vladimir Putin the moment of truth is fast approaching. In the wider interests of Russia, he should now step back, halt his invasion of Ukraine and try to salvage what is left of his damaged standing in the world.
By the end of this week the European Union will be ready to implement new sanctions on Russia’s businesses, energy suppliers and arms manufacturers. Nato will have agreed plans for a more muscular rapid reaction force ready to support eastern members of the alliance. Taking shape is a new European Commission that, with some exceptions, is no longer willing to give the Kremlin the benefit of the doubt in Ukraine or beyond. The freshly minted president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, wants the EU to negotiate with Russia to prevent Gazprom bullying smaller states. The mood, in short, has turned.
The Russian president may imagine that he has all but won the war for eastern Ukraine. His rhetoric remains brazen. He talks of giving statehood to eastern Ukraine; he boasts of new developments in the country’s strategic nuclear forces. The ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who frequently shares a podium with Mr Putin, talks of carpet-bombing the dwarf states of eastern Europe. The US reports that its airspace has been violated by Russian strategic nuclear bombers 16 times in the past ten days.
This is sabre-rattling at its crudest. The effect though has been to focus minds in the West — and to panic investors. According to leaks from the European Central Bank, capital flight from Russia in the first quarter of 2014 reached $221 billion. Some cash may return but not as long as Mr Putin deepens the war. Annexation of Crimea bought him some applause at home. Now, though, the war is beginning to look like a self-inflicted wound. Some 24 per cent of the foreign debt of Russian banks and companies falls due in 2014. Western sanctions make it impossible to refinance; even non-sanctioned companies are being frozen out of western credit markets.
Economic growth is grinding to a halt. The war rhetoric, the creeping awareness that Russian soldiers are starting to die and even the wrong-headed closure of McDonald’s outlets are adding to public irritation. Mr Putin almost certainly calculated he could split the West. This was not entirely wrong. The West has responded with shameful languor. Yet the talk ahead of Thursday’s Nato summit now suggests real determination to stop Mr Putin dismantling Ukraine.
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Two things have changed. First, there is now understanding among most western leaders that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the terrifying rise of Islamic State militias in Iraq and Syria transmit a similar message: ignoring someone who has declared war on you has very short-term benefits in a globalised world. Second, inaction in the face of a Russian invasion sets a precedent for illegal incursions in all states with a restless Russian-speaking minority. This is a week in which western nations must demonstrate that they are at last willing to reach consensus on these principles and act accordingly.
Perhaps the most potent weapon against Mr Putin is his vanity. He imagines himself loved, and believes he is the father of the nation. The West must do all it can to convince ordinary Russians that Mr Putin’s war is a sure road to disaster, and that their leader is betraying their interests.