ANALYSIS | Vladimir Putin has managed to unite his opponents

Posted On: February 20, 2022

Alexandra Ramos

London (CNN) — As the world watches and nervously waits to find out if Russian President Vladimir Putin will order his troops to attack Ukraine, European diplomats are learning some lessons from the ongoing crisis in Eastern Europe.

The European Union (EU) and NATO have been very united throughout this episode, which months ago was anything but definite.

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Behind the scenes, diplomats, NATO sources and EU officials praised the “unprecedented level of unity and coordination” that had “strengthened the transatlantic alliance” as the two agencies had worked alongside each other and with the United States. , as the EU. officially put it.

A senior European diplomat working in NATO said they were “absolutely surprised but grateful” by the regular contact and cooperation between EU and NATO leaders, which allowed the message to Moscow to be “coordinated and consistent.” at the highest diplomatic level”, despite the cultural and geographical differences of all stakeholders”.

While the two institutions should be natural partners on paper, this level of union is never secure. Relations between the two Brussels-based institutions have been strained in recent years. A particular low came in 2019, when President Emmanuel Macron of France, the EU’s biggest military power since Britain’s departure, said that what “we are experiencing right now is the brain death of NATO,” arguing that Europe needs to start by thinking of itself as a geopolitical power that strategic.

Ukrainian soldiers on the front line with Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk.

Macron has been Europe’s strongest proponent of what Brussels calls “strategic autonomy,” a general term used to describe the EU’s diplomatic independence from larger global powers such as the United States and China.

A large part of this push towards autonomy is the growing differences between the EU and traditional allies such as the US and UK over economic and political relations with countries such as Russia and China. Across the 27 EU member states there are varying degrees of dependence on Chinese investment and Russian gas. Some EU countries are relatively relaxed about friendly relations with Moscow as a matter of economic expediency, while others, especially ex-Soviet countries, view what is happening in Ukraine with greater concern and view Putin’s Russia with a similar degree of skepticism to Russia. United Kingdom and United States of America.

Ukrainian-Russian conflict described in 4 maps

The EU has also pushed for greater control over its own security, including the ability to deploy troops in its own right. Last year, the bloc unveiled plans for something called a “Strategic Compass,” a proposal that would give Brussels centralized powers to activate “rapid deployment groups” of up to 5,000 troops provided by member states to address specific issues. Not all member states were enthusiastic about the idea, as they feared it would undermine the security provided by NATO, meaning the proposal could be watered down and nearly ineffective.

With that in mind, a crisis like the one in Ukraine could almost be tailor-made to sow division within the EU in a way that would prohibit taking tough measures like sanctions against Russia, and create a huge headache at the time. with NATO in a unified Western response.

But in the face of Russian aggression, the EU is remarkably united and has complemented NATO’s hard line, officials said.

Tensions in eastern Ukraine have risen sharply. The Ukrainian military said the shooting damaged a kindergarten and injured three adult civilians in Stanytsia Luhanska. The attack made a hole in the wall of kindergarten number 21.

Officials say the reason it’s worked so well is because the EU has stuck to its strengths, as has NATO. A senior NATO official told CNN that the Ukraine crisis had been a “litmus test” for how the two should operate.

“NATO is a political and military alliance and can talk about strengthening defenses on the eastern side of Europe. The EU is more of an economic power that can go hand in hand with the US in terms of sanctions,” the official added.

NATO officials, who in recent years have been irritated and personally belittled by the EU and its global ambitions, have acknowledged that Brussels has played a role in the crisis that no other body can match.

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A senior NATO diplomat explained that the European Union had quickly drawn up proposals for a package of support funds, sanctions against Russia and emergency gas supplies. “We can’t do that, we don’t have the authority and even without a proposal, the Western response will definitely be much weaker,” they said.

However, despite all the warm words and “cooperation projects” in Ukraine, both sides accept that once this crisis is over, however long it takes, the ice could return to the two defenders of democracy, the most important in the West.

“What is going well in this case is a clear division of tasks based on competence. Where it won’t work in the future is where the line gets blurred. The European Union recently decided that it wants to be a security actor and has made some mistakes in this crisis,” a NATO official said.

Various sources noted the coordinated response to a letter sent by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to various countries, including the US, Canada and European countries, outlining Russia’s security concerns. Brussels is happy to point out that despite sending letters to dozens of national governments, Lavrov has only received two responses: from NATO and the European Union.

German Chancellors Olaf Scholz and Vladimir Putin

An EU official told CNN they “can’t think of a better example of two institutions coming together as partners than a coordinated response to Lavrov.”

But senior NATO officials explained that they thought the EU was “wasting too much effort writing a response to a letter that may have been written in five minutes and designed to cause disruption.” In that regard, the official believes the EU is “naive” and is playing in Russia’s hands, as a coordinated response “required attention here for weeks, but ultimately yielded little.”

The European diplomat said that this particular crisis has gone well because it “has been handled at a very high diplomatic and geopolitical level. Things like coordinated visits and visible leadership meetings.” However, they are also pessimistic that anything “in the wild like energy or cybersecurity” will return to two institutions with conflicting interests. In fact, the problem could even be a factor in Ukraine.

But any complacency in European capitals may be premature. Obviously, the situation on the Russia-Ukraine border remains harsh and frightening. Clearly, the Western response to date has only calmed Putin so far and things could still get very bad. Yet after years of private and sometimes public animosity, the EU and NATO have found a way to stay on the same page at a time of great uncertainty for the West. And with many crises looming outside of Ukraine, that’s only a good thing.

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