WASHINGTON (CI UKRAINE) — President Vladmir Putin’s decision to recognize the independence and send so-called “peacekeepers” to the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine can only be de-escalated by US President, Joe Biden, hosting a summit meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Camp David. If not, this crisis could surpass the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 in gravity if NATO members Poland and Lithuania decide to unilaterally blockade the port of Kaliningrad.

[Severstal CEO Alexey Mordashov speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass on impact of Western sanction following the annexation of Crimea at the Forum Ambrosetti Workshop in Cernobbio, Italy on September 5, 2014]

Kaliningrad, the Russian Baltic Sea port enclave surrounded by NATO members, Poland, and Lithuania, has now become the new red-red line as NATO member Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Riga have made it clear that economic sanctions are not enough if Russia moves forward by annexing another piece of Ukrainian territory following a Crimea land grab in 2014.

Any such blockade by Poland and Lithuania, such as cutting off land access to troops or vehicles headed to Kaliningrad or cutting off shipping supplies, would create the Sum of All Fears for NATO and Russian military chiefs of staff because of the uncertainty of combat between Russian and Polish-Lithuanian soldiers.

“People also need to remember that every Russian two-star general has control of a tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapon,” US Army Brigadier (Ret.) General Ernie Audino, former director of the US Joint Chiefs nuclear command, said.

Putin’s not so carefully crafted statement recognizing the Luhansk and Donetsk’s so-called People’s Republic leaves a very narrow channel for a summit between Biden and Putin proposed by French President Emanuel Macron and a Putin-Zelensky summit proffered by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

A critical next step is whether Draghi will go ahead with an announced meeting with Putin in Moscow this week.  The former European Central Bank president, unlike most European leaders and Biden, has avoided inflammatory rhetoric and instead engaged Putin on issues of direct national interest such as gas supply guarantees and the importance of Russian-Italian trade.

[European Central Bank President Mario Draghi chatting with Capitol Intelligence using CI Glass at IMF World Bank Annual meeting in Washington, DC. April 15, 2016]

Italy, a country with few natural resources and no nuclear power plants, imports 40% of its natural gas from Russia and would be thrown into a deep recession if Russia cuts off European gas supplies in response to economic sanctions by the United States and EU member countries.

“The European gas prices are already three times higher than they were before the conflict and will go even higher if Russia cuts off gas supplies when hit by sanctions,” a major Western gas derivative trader said.

While the most experienced Russian hands such as former US Ambassador to Moscow, Jack Matlock, always believed a full-fledged Russian ground invasion was a high-stake bluff by Putin, the recognition of the separatist’s areas was the card Putin was always prepared to play if he could not find a path out of devastating Western sanctions that has already costs the Russian economy more than a $1trln.

However, Biden can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by hosting Putin, Zelensky and possibly Draghi at Camp David in the Maryland countryside in the same way President Jimmy Carter did in forging the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1978.

Behind closed doors, CIA director and former US Ambassador to Moscow, William J. Burns, along with US Attorney General Merrick Garland and US Commerce Secretary and former Rhode Island governor, Gina Raimondo, should advise and help Putin and Zelensky reach a definitive and binding agreement to end all hostilities and resolve outstanding issues.

Italian Prime Minister Draghi can offer Ukraine the carrot that it truly seeks, a date for full membership to the European Union.

It was the fateful decision by kleptocratic Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych to reject a Ukrainian-European Association agreement in favor of Moscow largesse that triggered off the popular and violent Maidan uprising which led to Yanukovych’s oust and Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the separatist republics with their closed steel works, and crumbling coal mines.

Biden’s Camp David summit between Putin and Zelensky could also achieve a prime US objective of weakening or ending Russia’s default alliance with China. China, and not the United States, has always posed the existential threat to Russia’s territorial integrity as witnessed by the Sino-Soviet war of 1969 and the violent riots in Russia’s near abroad, Kazakhstan.

A Camp David summit where Putin and Zelensky can hammer out a binding agreement — including reparations for Crimea and autonomy for Donbas – could begin the first step of returning US-Russian relations to its pinnacle under US President Abraham Lincoln and Czar Alexander II.

A 2028 entry date for Ukraine to join the European Union would finally kickstart economic, political, and rule-of-law reforms to finally bring the agriculture, manufacturing, and SME giant to the same level as its economic miracle neighbor, Poland.

By PK Semler in Washington DC and edited by Nigel Wright in Los Angeles.  For more information, please email pks@capitolintelgroup.com

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