Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin spent 90 minutes on the phone with French President Emmanuel Macron, who asked him to declare a cease-fire in Ukraine.
Not interested, Putin replied.
“He refuses to stop his attacks,” Macron wrote on Twitter after the call.
A French official said Putin seemed determined “to take control of all of Ukraine.”
“The worst is yet to come,” the official added.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is in its second week. Some Russian units are mired in mud, but the offensive is escalating overall.
As the invasion has escalated, so, too, have economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies. And, like Ukraine’s armed forces, the sanctions have had more punch than expected. The Russian ruble has plunged in value, and ordinary Russians have scrambled to ATMs to try to get their money out of endangered banks.
But the two escalations are far from equivalent.
The sanctions have clearly damaged Russia’s economy, but there’s no sign that they have affected Putin’s calculus.
More Russian units have moved into Ukraine. Russian missile and artillery strikes on civilian neighborhoods have stepped up. Ukraine’s three biggest cities — including Kyiv, the capital — are in danger of falling. Sanctions may influence Russian decision-making down the road, but they won’t stop the siege on Kyiv.Richard N. Hass, Council on Foreign relations
Ukraine’s defenders are fighting courageously, but they are slowly losing ground.
“Sanctions may influence Russian decision-making down the road,” said Richard N. Haass, president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations. “But they won’t stop the siege of Kyiv.”
The Russian president has waged war against cities before and has been rewarded with success.
Putin came to power in 1999 largely by waging a savage war against separatists in Russia’s mostly Muslim republic of Chechnya. The resulting campaign killed tens of thousands of civilians.
