The Kremlin’s demands that the western alliance withdraw troops from eastern Europe may be a prelude to military action in Ukraine
In a documentary broadcast this month to mark the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin told interviewers that during the subsequent economic chaos, he had to supplement his KGB income by moonlighting as a taxi driver. The personal struggles of Russia’s president in the 1990s were offered as a poignant vignette, symbolising the humiliating consequences of what Mr Putin has called “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century”.
In different circumstances, western leaders might be tempted to roll their eyes at the pretensions of one of the world’s most powerful bullies to victimhood. But Mr Putin’s 30th anniversary reminiscences were of a piece with an aggressively revanchist mood in Moscow, as tensions on Russia’s border with Ukraine continue to grow. About 100,000 Russian troops remain massed close to eastern Ukraine, along with heavy weaponry and other hardware transported across thousands of miles. Western intelligence officials believe that no final decision has been taken by the Kremlin on whether to launch a military operation, after having backed separatist pro-Russian rebels in the Donbass region since 2014. But it seems clear that the sabre-rattling reflects a new determination to reassert Moscow’s eroded authority in what Mr Putin considers Russia’s legitimate “sphere of influence”.
