It’s the question that’s on the minds of the world these days: “How far is Vladimir Putin willing to go?” A number of presidents and other high-ranking politicians have tried to find out in telephone calls to the Russian ruler in the past few days. Can at least these diplomatic efforts make a difference?
“No, I have no hope that that will be possible,” says political scientist Gerhard Mangott in the ORF-Broadcast ZIB 2 pessimistic. Putin has said again that he is ready to achieve his war goals in Ukraine either through negotiations or militarily. “But what he calls a negotiation path is nothing other than Russia dictating conditions to Ukraine. Namely those that lead to Kiev’s political and military capitulation. The other then are the military means. Here I am firmly convinced that the Russian side will use all available military means to deprive Ukraine of its sovereignty”.
In talks with other statesmen, Putin would not only want to discuss ways of ending the war in Ukraine, but also much more economic issues, i.e. sanctions.
Speaking of sanctions, could stopping oil and gas supplies from Russia to the EU make Putin back down? “A trade embargo, at least in the energy sector, would certainly be another heavy blow for the Russian economy. But I don’t think Putin will let that deter him either. He wants to achieve these goals in Ukraine. It’s a kind of pathological obsession that he has : to bring Ukraine back into Russian orbit,” says the professor of international relations at the University of Innsbruck. “He will not be dissuaded by any sanctions.”