The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-13

The Sunday Times February 13, 2022 9

NEWS

West draws up ‘the mother of all

sanctions’ but will they work?

CRIMEA

BELARUS

RUSSIA

Moscow

UKRAINE

MOLDOVA

Black Sea

Kyiv

Lviv Kharkiv

Source: Rochan Consulting, Maxar, February 11

Occupied

Ukraine

Nato

countries

KEY

Russia

and allies

1,000 4,0006,

Newly arrived units

Russian units in

Belarus exercises

Tro op s

WHERE RUSSIA’S TROOPS

ARE POSITIONED

Millions of refugees could pour from

one country to another, says Wallace

Last week Britain agreed to boost its

military contribution to eastern Euro-

pean members of Nato, doubling the

presence of troops in Estonia, where the

UK lends 900 troops to the battlegroup it

leads. The RAF will also provide air polic-

ing in Romania, increasing the number of

Typhoons deployed from Cyprus. The

UK will also send a T45 destroyer and the

offshore patrol ship HMS Trent to the

eastern Mediterranean.

Wallace said: “We have already had a

donor conference and talks about put-

ting lots of extra forces into the pot. That

includes 1,000 from the British Army at

readiness, more Typhoons in the south-

ern Mediterranean region. We have

talked about more Navy ships to patrol

the Black Sea.” Britain had also sent 350

Royal Marines to Poland for joint exer-

cises while Nato decides how to distrib-

ute the forces. “So we are busy and we are

leading the pack alongside the United

States, making sure that President Putin

understands that we will all stick

together,” Wallace said.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, will be

in eastern European capitals over the

next month spearheading the diplomatic

campaign. Her message will be that a Rus-

sian invasion would backfire on the

Kremlin and result in a drawn-out con-

flict. Wallace echoed her concerns, warn-

ing that he warned Putin that defence

spending across Nato countries would be

ramped up if he invaded.

He said: “I have always said that fund-

ing should be linked to the threat. If the

threat grows, the prime minister has

shown he is very open to further discus-

sions ... I think what I can guarantee the

president in Russia is that if he were to

invade the Ukraine two things would hap-

pen that he doesn’t want to happen. One

is he would see an increase of Nato forces

on his borders because countries such as

the Baltic states and neighbouring coun-

tries would be much more fearful of the

instability ... The second thing is, I guar-

antee that across 30 [Nato] allies it would

trigger more defence spending and there-

fore a more capable adversary or

defender from Russia. And if you are

thinking about your strategic interests as

Russia, you surely don’t really want that.”

Wallace also warned Russia against

relying on the support of China as he

claimed it would be against Beijing’s

interests for there to be a war in Europe.

He said he feared for the security of

Europe and added that the western

response to previous incidents of Russian

aggression against Georgia and the Cri-

mea had been “muted” and had left Putin

with the impression there were not many

consequences “the first time around”.

Under the cover of darkness yesterday

morning, Ben Wallace, the defence secre-

tary, landed back in a field in Britain.

He had been on a whistle-stop tour of

Moscow to meet senior Kremlin figures as

the West stepped up its diplomatic efforts

to stop President Vladimir Putin from

ordering an invasion of Ukraine.

Within hours of Wallace’s departure

from the Russian capital, Britons were

urged to flee immediately amid fears that

the countdown to war had begun. Like-

ning the final-hour diplomatic efforts to

stop Russian aggression to appeasement

in the last days before the Second World

War, Wallace, 51, said: “It wasn’t Munich,

it was Moscow.

“It may be that he [President Putin]

just switches off his tanks and we all go

home but there is a whiff of Munich in the

air from some in the West.”

Britain will withdraw troops from

Ukraine this weekend as the United

States warned that Russia could invade

within days.

The Foreign Office changed its advice

shortly after Wallace, a former captain in

the Scots Guards, concluded hours of

talks with Kremlin figures including Gen-

eral Valery Gerasimov, chief of the gen-

eral staff.

He said the chance of Russia invading

Ukraine was “highly likely” and warned

that the military presence on the border

had reached such a size that troops could

“launch an offensive at any time”.

Wallace added: “The worrying thing is

that despite the massive amount of

increased diplomacy, that military

build-up has continued. It has not

paused, it has continued.”

Caroline Wheeler

The defence secretary is downbeat about averting conflict and fears the knock-on effects could be disastrous

“You can’t quite say that of Britain,”

Wallace said of the UK’s response to the

Salisbury novichok poisoning of the

former double agent Sergei Skripal and

his daughter Yulia.

“After the Skripals, we led the charge

that led in an international response to

expelling 153 Russian intelligence officers

around the world.”

Wallace said a Russian minister had

described relations with Britain at “zero

per cent” as a result of “us standing up to

Russia”. He added: “I definitely have a

genuine fear about what it means for

European security,” he said. “The poten-

tial of millions of displaced people — refu-

gees — pouring from [one] European

country to another, hasn’t been seen

since the war and could potentially have

a massive impact.

“I worry about why a president of Rus-

sia would do this when he doesn’t need to

and what that says about him as a leader.”

Wallace said Putin was clear in an

essay in July that “he has his eye on quite

a lot more than just Ukraine”. If Europe

did nothing, “he will go somewhere else

potentially, so I think we have to be really

worried about what it means about the

future of the Russian government and

what they really think about the world

and its relationship with Europe”.

Wallace is the latest foreign politician

to visit Moscow to make overtures of

peace to the Kremlin. Last week Emma-

nuel Macron, the French president,

made waves when he refused to take a

Russian Covid test before his meeting

with Putin. It was alleged that Macron

refused the PCR test because of fears the

Russians would get hold of his DNA.

Wallace was more pragmatic. “I am

sure if someone really wants my DNA it

wouldn’t be hard to do that,” he said. “I

don’t think they are going to be cloning

Ben Wallaces any time soon.”

UKRAINE CRISIS

Russian forces

take part in

exercises with

Belarus while in

Kyiv, Ukrainians

proclaim their

patriotism during

yesterday’s Unity

March

LEONID SHCHEGLOV/BELTA/TASS; VALENTYN OGIRENKO/REUTERS

Addressing the US Senate in

December, Bob Menendez,

foreign relations committee

chairman, sent a stark

message to Vladimir Putin

that an invasion of Ukraine

would trigger “the mother of

all sanctions”.

As Putin masses troops on

Ukraine’s borders, the US, the

EU and the UK are putting the

finishing touches to a package

of punitive measures.

In 2014, when Russia

annexed Crimea, it took the

West months to agree

sanctions. Targets included

an elite circle of Putin

cronies, state-owned banks,

defence contractors and

energy giants. There were

also embargoes on western

exports to Russia of high-tech

oil equipment and certain

military products. This time,

the group of those close to

Putin would be wider.

Last week, the UK tabled

proposed sanctions that

could hit anyone deemed to

be “involved in the support of

the [Russian] government”,

which could include oligarchs

living in London. James

Cleverly, the Europe minister,

said it would “amount to the

toughest sanctions regime

against Russia that we have

had and mark the biggest

change in our approach since

leaving the European Union”.

In Washington, a dozen

Russian banks have been

Oliver Shah

Associate Editor

discussed as possible targets,

including Sberbank, where

most Russians pay their

mortgages, and VTB. Both are

already limited in their ability

to raise money in the US, but

harsher measures would

bring wide-ranging

consequences.

Joe Biden has considered

excluding Russian banks from

Swift, the payments system,

although that is said to have

been resisted by EU leaders.

The US could extend bans

on high-tech exports to

include parts used in

electronics such as phones.

The nuclear option would

hit Russia’s oil and gas

industries. It is not clear

whether western leaders will

initially go that far, although

Ursula von der Leyen, the

European Commission

president, said the Nord

Stream 2 gas pipeline from

Russia to Germany “cannot

be excluded” from sanctions.

Russia has been hardened

by the 2014 measures, which

sent the rouble sliding,

causing high inflation and

tipping the economy into

recession. Putin has

developed a “Fortress Russia”

strategy to make it more

resilient to future sanctions.

Its central bank reserves

have increased by more than

70 per cent since late 2015 to

more than $620 billion and

the proportion stored in

dollars has fallen. The

National Wealth Fund, a store

for oil and gas income, holds

about $180 billion, double

that of five years ago.

The price for Fortress

Russia is slower growth. Its

economy has grown by about

0.8 per cent a year since 2013,

versus 3 per cent for the

global economy. Ukraine

tensions are already weighing

on the rouble, which has

fallen by about 3.5 per cent

against the pound since the

start of the year. Last week,

Russia’s central bank raised

its key interest rate.

The main concern will be

the extent to which sanctions

would have knock-on effects.

European leaders’ aversion to

shutting Russian banks out of

Swift centre on the fact that

Russian entities owe about

$60 billion to EU banks — four

times the amount they owe to

American banks. Officials

from the US National Security

Council held talks with Wall

Street banks about the threat

to global financial stability.

Another issue could be raw

materials. Russia supplies

about 40 per cent of the

world’s palladium, used in

catalytic converters in

vehicles, and 30 per cent of

its titanium, crucial for the

aerospace industry.

Putin has been accused of

leveraging state-owned

Gazprom’s role as a gas

supplier. Europe is heavily

dependent on Russia,

sourcing about 40 per cent of

its gas from the country.

There have been talks about

finding alternative supply

channels, including Qatar.

Putin’s trump card would

be to curb supplies. But that

would have a long-term cost

to Russia’s reputation as an

energy provider. In this game

of chess, his most potent

US military vehicles mass in Poland amid the threat of war move may be beyond reach.

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