The Guardian view on Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation address: things are not going well

President Vladimir Putin devoted most of his state of the nation address on Thursday to pledging that Turkey would long regret the recent shooting down of a Russian warplane on the Syrian-Turkish border, and to charges that Turkey was selling on oil from Isis. This would not just be a case of a ban on Turkish tomatoes, he thundered, but of far more serious consequences into the far future. It was a curious performance from a leader who, with his annexation of Crimea, his incursions into Ukraine, and his intervention in Syria, has startled and worried the world with his bold and wilful policies. 

The big picture was largely lacking in his speech, during which several of his listeners in the Kremlin were seen nodding off. No doubt Mr Putin sought a nationalist response to his diatribe against Turkey, and no doubt he will find one, but if there are citizens in Russia who would have liked a reasoned account of how well Moscow’s Ukrainian and Syrian initiatives are playing out, they did not get it on Thursday.

That is because the costs of both have so far outweighed any gains. Crimea has been in the dark since Crimean Tatars and their Ukrainian allies brought down the power lines that supply the peninsula late last month. Perhaps, mused one Tatar leader whimsically, the wind had blown the pylons away. Mr Putin has just inaugurated an “energy bridge”, an undersea cable that will put some lights on again soon, but it will take much longer than that to restore a full supply. The Crimean blackout has made relations with Kiev, such as they were, worse, as have Russian demands for changes to the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement, due to come into force in January.

The next step, unless there is a breakthrough, will be further Russian trade sanctions on Ukraine. This is against the background of the failure of both countries to meet their commitments to a ceasefire, withdrawal of troops and heavy weapons, and the establishment of an internationally monitored security zone along the Ukraine-Russia border. This overall decline in relations is a problem for Europe, but also a problem for Russia. Moscow is finding its local proxies both demanding and unbiddable, has returned to the idea that influence in Kiev is more important than taking territory in the east, and wants to trade some kind of cooperation in Syria for some kind of deal over Ukraine and EU sanctions. Whether that is or is not realistic, the prospect would hardly be advanced by more trade war, or, worse, a return to high levels of hostilities.

In Syria, Russian intervention has certainly succeeded in propping up President Assad at a point when the regime and its Iranian backers were worried that it might be going down for good. But that is not the same as saying it has reversed its fortunes. The first major offensive by Syrian troops after the Russians came in with their planes was bloodily stopped in its tracks by rebels armed with wire-guided antitank missiles supplied by their Gulf supporters. Like the United States, Russia has found that air power is not a magic potion. 

Diplomacy is equally tricky: Russia’s intelligence and other arrangements with Iran and Iraq constitute an inherently fragile alliance that could easily crumble, in particular over the future of President Assad, with the Iranians suspicious that Russia might be ready at some stage to dump the Syrian leader. As a result of the clash with Turkey, Mr Putin may be learning the lesson that it takes a long time to make a friend, but only a day to lose one. Russo-Turkish relations have been on an upward curve since 1992, with the former president Dmitry Medvedev, in Mr Putin’s audience on Thursday, prominent in the improvement. Bombing Turkey’s ethnic kin was not the smartest of moves, whatever we may think of the Turkish reaction. Russia’s aim was to transform the Syrian situation. Instead, it has merely added its blunders to those of others.

In the eyes of many Russians, the Syrian adventure has also brought tragedy for their own civilians, in the shape of the bombing of a plane full of holidaymakers. Rightly or wrongly, such a shock is seen as proof that there is a price to pay for intervention abroad, a view that should be weighed before taking action, as it has been in the British debate about airstrikes in Syria. No such debate took place in Russia. It is still possible, both in Ukraine and Syria, that Russia could end by contributing solutions. Western countries bear a share of the blame for these two enormous messes, but we need a more temperate and less bellicose Russia if we are to find them.

Original

That is because the costs of both have so far outweighed any gains. Crimea has been in the dark since Crimean Tatars and their Ukrainian allies brought down the power lines that supply the peninsula late last month. Perhaps, mused one Tatar leader whimsically, the wind had blown the pylons away. Mr Putin has just inaugurated an “energy bridge”, an undersea cable that will put some lights on again soon, but it will take much longer than that to restore a full supply. The Crimean blackout has made relations with Kiev, such as they were, worse, as have Russian demands for changes to the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement, due to come into force in January.

The next step, unless there is a breakthrough, will be further Russian trade sanctions on Ukraine. This is against the background of the failure of both countries to meet their commitments to a ceasefire, withdrawal of troops and heavy weapons, and the establishment of an internationally monitored security zone along the Ukraine-Russia border. This overall decline in relations is a problem for Europe, but also a problem for Russia. Moscow is finding its local proxies both demanding and unbiddable, has returned to the idea that influence in Kiev is more important than taking territory in the east, and wants to trade some kind of cooperation in Syria for some kind of deal over Ukraine and EU sanctions. Whether that is or is not realistic, the prospect would hardly be advanced by more trade war, or, worse, a return to high levels of hostilities.

In Syria, Russian intervention has certainly succeeded in propping up President Assad at a point when the regime and its Iranian backers were worried that it might be going down for good. But that is not the same as saying it has reversed its fortunes. The first major offensive by Syrian troops after the Russians came in with their planes was bloodily stopped in its tracks by rebels armed with wire-guided antitank missiles supplied by their Gulf supporters. Like the United States, Russia has found that air power is not a magic potion. Diplomacy is equally tricky: Russia’s intelligence and other arrangements with Iran and Iraq constitute an inherently fragile alliance that could easily crumble, in particular over the future of President Assad, with the Iranians suspicious that Russia might be ready at some stage to dump the Syrian leader. As a result of the clash with Turkey, Mr Putin may be learning the lesson that it takes a long time to make a friend, but only a day to lose one. Russo-Turkish relations have been on an upward curve since 1992, with the former president Dmitry Medvedev, in Mr Putin’s audience on Thursday, prominent in the improvement. Bombing Turkey’s ethnic kin was not the smartest of moves, whatever we may think of the Turkish reaction. Russia’s aim was to transform the Syrian situation. Instead, it has merely added its blunders to those of others.

In the eyes of many Russians, the Syrian adventure has also brought tragedy for their own civilians, in the shape of the bombing of a plane full of holidaymakers. Rightly or wrongly, such a shock is seen as proof that there is a price to pay for intervention abroad, a view that should be weighed before taking action, as it has been in the British debate about airstrikes in Syria. No such debate took place in Russia. It is still possible, both in Ukraine and Syria, that Russia could end by contributing solutions. Western countries bear a share of the blame for these two enormous messes, but we need a more temperate and less bellicose Russia if we are to find them.