Editorial: Make no mistake – Putin would turn the clock back to the Cold War

Vladimir Putin did not just signal his intentions to recognise two breakaway Ukrainian republics last night, nor did he only lay the groundwork for a coming invasion of at least those territories. In a speech ostensibly to the Russian people but very much to the world, he declared, simply and clearly – the Cold War is back. Ukraine may only be the first battleground.

Under pressure at home, overseeing an economy struggling with sanctions and decades of under-investment, Putin’s speech blamed everybody from Lenin to Bill Clinton for Russia’s current plight. Like embattled Soviet strongmen before him, he lashed out at enemies real and invisible. For Putin, 1991 is just something that happened to other people.

It does not say much for the foreign policy skills of Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron that a lengthy phone conversation between the pair and the Kremlin’s chief aggressor resulted in such a belligerent speech. In truth Europe’s weakness towards Russia over the past few years – and the reliance of the continent on Russian gas – left them with few cards to play.

Those that remain are chiefly financial. Putin’s cronies, a cabal of oligarchic gangsters who have robbed Russia blind, would be hit hard by specific sanctions. It is time to pull the trigger on those. It is similarly hard to see Nord Stream 2, the Russian pipeline so effectively cheerled by Angela Merkel (some legacy), coming into use anytime soon.

It is clear that there is no desire from western forces to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. That proud and so-often-battered country will be left to stand on its own against the Kremlin. All the west can do now is make the cost of further escalation so high that a miscalculation by Putin could bring down the house of cards he presides over. And after last night’s bellicose rhetoric, it is time to up our support of those other countries – from Estonia to Georgia – threatened by this grievance-filled Russian bear.