Panikas murgi un ļaunprātīga tracināšana no “The Independent”

[…] Day by day, Putin’s tanks continued to bite off bleeding chunks of eastern Ukraine. Then, on 14 August, came the Rezekne incident. Three ethnic Russian families were massacred in the provincial capital of Latgale in Latvia – another half-Russian region. Had Moscow special forces carried out the murders and blamed them on extreme Latvian nationalists?[…]

Rival waves of propaganda swirled through cyberspace. The electronic fog of 21st-century “asymmetrical” warfare thickened. One fact lay beyond ambiguity: Latvian membership of Nato. If the Rezekne atrocity were exposed as a Russian provocation, then Latvia could plead Article 5. As it happens, a report of the House of Commons defence committee had, on 31 July 2014, pointed out the vulnerability of the Baltic states to the “information warfare” and “the inciting of disturbances that have caused such chaos in Ukraine”. It also sounded an alert about “the difficulty of invoking an Article 5 response following an asymmetric attack where it is difficult to prove a state actor is responsible”.

Putin, the master of deniable, “ambiguous” combat, understood all that. Then, as he had before but with apocalyptic risks this time, he overplayed his hand. On 23 August 2014, exactly 75 years after the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, the Russian attacks on Latvia changed everything. As in Crimea, remotely orchestrated “uprisings” of Russian-speaking Latvians were suddenly guided by mysterious well-armed strangers. On 26 August, planes from the Russian base just across the border blitzed the Latvian air force headquarters at Lielvarde, knowing that its usual shield of Nato fighters had moved closer to Ukraine.

Putin cited as precedent the French, US and UK air attacks on Libyan forces around Benghazi in 2011 in order to forestall a massacre. In Latvia and Ukraine, Russia claimed that its operations served to defend civilian communities made up of its “own people”. As in 1914, so in 2014. “Non-state actors”, either genuine or fictitious, could disrupt the global balance of power.

Now the White House, with Europe tagging behind, had no choice but to react. All UN-sponsored mediation collapsed. With Article 5 in force, and de facto extended to Ukraine, the Nato forces already scheduled to move into the region on exercises were heavily reinforced.

Nato issued its 28 August ultimatum: a demand for an immediate end to all Russian military activity in and over Latvia, and a withdrawal of forces from Ukraine by midnight on 1 September. Without compliance, the Western assets mustered close by in Poland could exercise the right to act under Article 5. Few were comforted by the thought that both sides envisaged “only” non-nuclear strikes.

To a backdrop of the slaughtered children of Gaza and Donetsk, Putin indicted Western hypocrisy across the global media. Behind the scenes, however, the Russian elite squabbled and split. Blanket sanctions had cut deep into the ability of Moscow’s crony cash to move around the world. The oligarchs had begun to smart and bleed. So had the state-controlled banks and energy giants.

Meanwhile, Nato commanders were privately aghast. The most limited raids in Latvia or Ukraine would call forth an overwhelming counterstrike. Even without the nuclear option, that would leave both Ukraine and the Baltic states back in Moscow’s hands for good. Only in July, those British parliamentarians had warned that Nato “is currently not well prepared for a Russian threat against a member state”. Moscow knew the score and its hawks relished reversing at least some of the losses of 1989 and 1991.

It also had much popular opinion around the global “South” firmly on its side. But the very integration into Western capital and markets that had enriched the Putin clique also proved the fatal chink in its armour. By 1 September, the Kremlin had decided to claim a moral victory and back down. Its price? An autonomous Donetsk Republic that would, in short order, race down the Crimean route into complete integration with the Russian motherland. The ethnic Russians in the Baltic, having served their patriotic purpose, turned out to be rather more expendable – although Moscow mandated severe curbs on future Nato deployment in those states.

So, on 1 September, the planes stayed grounded and the tanks rolled back. Moscow had lost – and it had won. […]

vara bungas: Tas ir britu autora suņa murgs, briesmeklītis pieaugušajiem, dzīvē tā nenotiek,  ko vēl sadomājies, kas viņš tāds ir, analfabēts kautkāds, ko tie briti iedomājas,  NATO tad beigs pastāvēt, nav ko tracināt tautu, tas ir apokaliptisks scenārijs, mums ir apliecinājumi, reālu draudu nav, saukt autoru pie atbildības, es vinu pazīstu, bet vairāk nesveicināšos, noteikti izmests no iepriekšējās darbavietas par dzeršanu, skribents, viņš pienesa kafiju … Доброе утро товарищи!