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As crises flare in Iraq and Syria, Putin presses on, undeterred

Readers of the opinion pages haven’t read much of Putin lately. With the world rightly attuned to the Islamic State — serial televised beheadings will do that — and with the existential threat of a nuclear Iran fast approaching, a border war in darkest Eastern Europe just can’t compete. Those of us who hustle to stay abreast of all that happens around the globe have only so many hours, only so much bandwidth.

For that, Putin is blessed. And pleased.

Set aside all the spin from government leaders and pundits who think Putin is, or isn’t, a mortal threat to world order that essentially has endured since World War II. Look instead at facts on the ground, specifically Putin’s slow-motion and unblocked advance into Europe.

Whatever words flow from Western capitals or the commentariat, Putin is undeniably at war. And Putin is winning.

Putin knows Westerners well. He knows we are not weak. Yet he also knows we have excitable, if short, attention spans — that we are easily distracted by today’s crisis, just as we will be easily distracted by tomorrow’s. From China’s turf kerfuffles with its neighbors to the Mideast’s bloody sands to Africa’s Ebola emergency, the world has obliged Putin with a steady run of crises far from his unrelenting encroachment in Ukraine.

We have called for sanctions that inconvenience Putin’s Russia and perhaps, if they intensify, threaten his popularity among the Russian people. Time after time, though, Putin takes a few aggressive steps forward, takes one step back, declares progress toward peace — and trusts that the rest of us will roll our eyes but quickly lose interest.

In other words, Putin exploits the West’s busy global agenda with overt PR and covert military maneuvering:

The former loped into the absurd Sunday when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for a “reset 2.0” in Russia’s relations with Washington. He added that conditions in Ukraine are improving because of Kremlin peace initiatives — specifically a Sept. 5 truce in Ukraine that is holding, if unevenly. Lavrov also criticized NATO (read: the U.S.) for what he called its Cold War mentality. “We are absolutely interested in bringing the ties to normal but it was not us who destroyed them,” he said. “Now they require what the Americans would probably call a reset.”

Note the sly jab at President Barack Obama, who early on proposed a “reset” of relations between the two powers. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously presented Lavrov with a red “Reset” button — only to learn with some embarrassment that in Russian the button actually said “Overload” (the two words are similar). Now, with Russia stoking an insurrection on foreign soil and with Obama last week broaching the topic of lifting sanctions if Moscow behaves, Moscow proposes a reset. Cute.

So while, yes, the West may gradually apply new sanctions against Russia, Putin can see that the West’s heart isn’t in this: As winter approaches, European officials are pressing the government in Kiev to compromise with Moscow on a big and critical dispute over natural gas. Kiev has little choice but to appease the Europeans, capitulate to Moscow, and further weaken its economy in the process: The European Union, which Ukraine wants to join, receives more than a third of its gas imports from Russia.

The details are dense but the truth simple, synthesized in a Wall Street Journal story: “The outlines of the potential deal, reached in Berlin, show how the Kremlin is shifting from a military to an economic strategy to fight Ukraine’s efforts to align itself with the West.”

Not that the Kremlin’s military strategy isn’t doing nicely. Putin easily devoured Crimea. And pro-Russian separatists used September to broaden their reach in eastern Ukraine. We don’t know how much territory, in how many countries, he aspires to quietly conquer. His attention span? Long. At home he’s rehabilitating a Russian identity wounded by the collapse of the Soviet Union — 23 years and four U.S. presidents ago.

Hence our suggestion that you set aside all the spin about Putin, from those who want a tougher or weaker Western response, and watch those facts on the ground.

Oh, and on one fact in the air: the July 17 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, evidently by Russian separatists firing a Russian-produced Buk surface-to-air missile from inside Ukraine.

China on the prowl, Islamic State swords, lagging nuclear talks with Iran, Ebola. All crucial. But when’s the last time you heard a Western leader talk about the 298 innocents blown from the sky by Vladimir Putin’s little friends?

The above editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Sept. 30.

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