Aviation Week & Space Technology - January 15, 2015

36 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/JANUARY 15-FEBRUARY 1, 2015 AviationWeek.com/awst

I

n the months leading up to the Winter Olympics in and around

the port city of Sochi, the world’s gaze shifted to Russian Presi-

dent Vladimir Putin. The goodwill carried by the international

symbol of sportsmanship evaporated quickly, however. For it was

just one month after the closing ceremonies, that Russia unilat-

erally annexed Crimea, Ukraine’s strategically useful Black Sea

peninsula.

The move was shocking in the West,

but less so in Russia, where the former

KGB agent’s popularity and national

pride surged. Moscow contends that

feeling has led ethnic Russians in

Eastern Ukraine to fi ght to rejoin the

Russian fold. But NATO, whose East-

ern members watched Russian tanks

assemble on the border, and who have

seen the military’s increasingly aggres-

sive military exercises—some of which

simulated the use of nuclear weapons

against them—had other opinions.

Putin’s actions, followed by fi ghting in

eastern Ukraine, undeniably altered the

geopolitical landscape. L ess visible are

the ripples af ecting the defense, space

and commercial aviation realms. But

Putin’s Russia was destined to upset

all those sectors signifi cantly in 2014.

Jen DiMascio Washington, Tony Osborne London, Amy Svitak Paris and Jens Flottau Frankfurt

The Putin Effect

Russian actions

are rippling through

the aerospace and

airline industries

Before the year was out, NATO had

directed its member nations to spend

20% of their military budgets on new

equipment. France had refused to de-

liver a high-priced warship it was under

contract to build for Russia. Eastern Eu-

ropean nations especially felt the chill.

But nations throughout the West found

themselves once again in the cat-and-

mouse military games with Russian

forces that seemed to have faded with

the end of the Cold War. Decades before.

PERSON OF THE YEAR

EPA/LANDOV FILE PHOTO

Russian President Vladimir Putin

walks with top advisers Dmitry

Rogozin, deputy prime minister

and a leader of Russia’s military

industry matters (left) and Foreign

Minister Sergey Lavrov (right).