After an unexplained ten-day absence, during which the world wondered whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had died, suffered a stroke or fathered a love child, the man with an 83 per cent approval rating is back in a spectacular way.
Before thousands of adoring fans on Red Square last week, to mark the first anniversary of what the west calls the “annexation” of Crimea and what Putin calls its “reunification”, he triumphantly declared, “We are together!” Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after a referendum that showed a majority of its population didn’t want to remain under Ukrainian control.
By all accounts it was quite some celebration. At an open-air concert the President expressed his gratitude for the “amazing togetherness and patriotism” of Russians in supporting the “historical return” of Crimea.
The message though was directly aimed at Washington. It was a defiant Putin asserting in the brashest of ways that the economic sanctions are hurting but won’t bring him to heel, force him out of eastern Ukraine where a ceasefire brokered barely a month ago is breached almost every day by Moscow backed separatists and the Ukrainian military alike.
With just sanctions in their armoury, the United States and its allies, including the European Union and Australia, appear to be all but out of options.
And as if to emphasise the point, in the shadow of the Crimea celebrations President Putin took one of his boldest and most underreported steps. In a second two-finger salute to his detractors, he signed a treaty with Southern Ossetia bringing the military, security agencies and border guards of this Russian protectorate under Kremlin control.
Georgia, on whose territory Southern Ossetia lies, was as underwhelmed with the treaty as it was with the massive air defence exercises Moscow held in near by Abkhazia, the other predominantly Russian territory in Georgia which Moscow recognised as independent after a war in 2008.
NATO is as unimpressed and concerned as Georgia. In a statement, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said:
“South Ossetia and Abkhazia are integral parts of Georgia. NATO fully supports Georgia’s sovereignty, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders. We continue to call on Russia to reverse its recognition of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia as independent states and to withdraw its forces from Georgia.”
The chance of that happening is zero: Moscow clearly has no intention of surrendering its control over either Southern Ossetia or Abkhazia. No doubt to the cheers of Russia’s nationalists, Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov answered NATO’s concerns with the pithy observation that the western military alliance itself is far more active on Russia’s borders than the Russian military. NATO, said Antonov is moving closer to Russia’s borders and its using Ukraine’s right to sovereignty as a pretext. Russia, he said was prepared for any turn of events. It sounded menacing, especially after President Putin’s claim that he’d been preparing to arm Russia’s nuclear arsenal to reclaim Crimea.
But from the Russian perspective, NATO’s very outspoken defence of Ukraine against the separatists in the east of the country is also menacing. If it’s to be a war of wills, it may as well be spectacular. And May 9th will usher in the mother of all spectaculars.
President Barack Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor Angel Merkel are all snubbing what will be grandiose celebration to mark the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II or the Great Patriotic War as its known in Russia. It’s a celebration so grand even some Russians see as symbolic of their President’s defiant attitude towards the west.
There’ll be wall-to-wall television documentaries, parades across the country and a display of military might the likes of which the west hasn’t seen in a very long time. Patriotism will be turned up to a deafening level. And although the world’s most powerful leaders won’t be there to witness it and salute Russia’s role in the war, one of their most despised enemies will be.
North Korea's Kim Jong Un, the leader of the least democratic nation in the world, will journey on his first foreign visit as leader to cheer on Vladimir Putin. In Moscow, even Putin’s supporters are perplexed.
As North Korea expert Nicholas Ebestadt put it: "Spite is an underestimated quality in international relations.”
So too is the power of the two-finger salute.
Monica Attard is a Sydney based freelance journalist and former ABC foreign correspondent and senior broadcaster.
