The West needs to make it plain that it will not tolerate any further occupation of European soil by the Kremlin
by Telegraph View
The prospects of a deeper escalation of the Ukraine crisis have increased significantly with the warning by John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, that Russia is actively seeking to destabilise parts of the country with a view to staging another Crimea-style military intervention. Mr Kerry has accused Moscow of using provocateurs and agents to encourage pro-Russian activists to seize control of key cities in the east of the country, a view echoed by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, who claims the latest flare-up in violence bears “all the hallmarks of a Russian strategy to destabilise Ukraine”.
With pro-Moscow activists attempting to occupy government buildings in cities such as Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lugansk, these warnings need to be taken seriously, especially when we remember that Moscow employed similar tactics in the build-up to last month’s illegal annexation of Crimea. The FSB, Russia’s overseas intelligence service, is known to be active in the region and, with its agents encouraging ethnic Russians to revolt against the Ukrainian government, it is no doubt seeking to lay the foundations for a broader intervention aimed at annexing yet more Ukrainian territory.
To prevent such a disastrous outcome, the West needs to make it plain that it will not tolerate any further occupation of European soil by the Kremlin. To date the US and EU have limited their response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea to targeting the assets of a small coterie of officials and oligarchs accused of orchestrating the operation. Any further acts of aggression by Moscow towards its vulnerable neighbour should result in Western powers implementing a broad range of sanctions that not only inflict severe damage on the Russian economy, but deepen Moscow’s status as an international outcast.
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