When Vladimir Putin sent troops to Crimea, Russia’s president denied they were occupying the territory until he went ahead and annexed it.
Now he’s at it again, plainly undeterred by the sanctions imposed on him after the separatists he backed shot a civilian Malaysian airliner out of the sky.
Russian troops have crossed into Ukraine, and once again — as President Obama’s press conference Thursday underscored — we’re caught up in a semantic debate about whether those Russian troops constitute an “invasion.”
Asked directly at the press conference, the president dodged. Earlier this week, a spokesman in his National Security Council explained that Russia’s latest move in Ukraine “only amplifies international concerns about Russia’s true intentions.”
That’s ridiculous. There’s not a single person in the international community who doesn’t know exactly what Putin’s intentions are — which is to re-create the Soviet empire as Greater Russia.
The only “true intentions” we don’t yet know is America’s: Is the United States as committed to Ukraine as the president says?
The most telling line of the Obama presser was the president’s candid admission that “we don’t have a strategy yet.”
Though he said it in reference to a question about how he might act against Islamic State terrorists in Syria, it applies to almost all his foreign policy. All we ever seem to get from him is what he won’t do.
This time was no exception. “We are not taking military action to solve the Ukrainian problem,” Obama said flatly.
No one’s calling for American troops to engage the Russians. Ukraine has an army large enough for the job. What it needs is training and equipment.
Back in 1994, Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for a guarantee its sovereignty would be respected — a guarantee that carries Uncle Sam’s signature.
It’s time we recognized the provocations are all coming from Putin, and that the only thing likely to stop him is a Ukraine with the wherewithal to defend itself.