Putin’s aviation nightmare

The Russian president pilots a dangerous course for his country.

Vladimir Putin must hate aviation. The tragic crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt last weekend, with mounting evidence of a terrorist attack by ISIL, is but the latest in a series of air disasters challenging the Kremlin over the last year. All of these have directly resulted from Moscow’s ever more aggressive foreign policy — inUkraine, at NATO borders, and over Syria.

Each of them profoundly impacts, and indeed reduces, the policy options available to the Russian leadership. And none of them, unfortunately, has so far been able to convince Putin that only a radical departure from his prevailing course will improve his outlook, and that of the world around him.

Three years ago, Putin stunned the world by flying a hang glider to guide Siberian cranes toward their wintering grounds further south. Since this eccentric episode, however, Putin’s navigation has gone into free fall.

First, there was the downing of MH17 in July 2014. The Malaysian passenger jet was, as international investigators have established, destroyed by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-held territory in Ukraine. Although not likely intended, 298 innocent travelers perished as a direct result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, its sponsorship of armed rebels in the eastern part of the country, and its supply of advanced weaponry.

Next was a string of Russian air force crashes in the summer of 2015. Within a few weeks, more than half a dozen fatal incidents involving bombers, fighter jets, and attack helicopters rattled the Russian army. Military observers have attributed these serial accidents to ageing equipment, poor maintenance, and the lack of qualified personnel at a time when Russia increased its probing of NATO air space to the highest levels since the end of the Cold War.

Finally, the tragic death of 224 Russian vacationers and crew aboard the plane that crashed in Sinai a few days ago was — as is becoming increasingly obvious — revenge for the Kremlin’s intervention in Syria. Within days of Putin’s ordering air strikes to aid embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad, the Islamic State had urged a jihad against Russia. This call was heeded swiftly.

These repeated air disasters are Kremlin-made. Directly or indirectly, they are the result of Russia’s aggressive actions in its immediate neighborhood and farther afield. What is more, they seriously affect the room for manoeuver that is at Putin’s disposal.

MH17 effectively ushered in an unprecedented wave of Western economic sanctions against Russia. Before the crash, Western responses to the Russian war against Ukraine had been half-hearted at best. Only when faced with the death of hundreds of innocent passengers did Europe muster the political will and unity to impose punitive measures. That unity has held remarkably well and helped to constrain, although not to reverse, Russian action against Ukraine and other neighbors. And gradually, sanctions are chipping away on the economic fundamentals and the power base of the Putin regime.

More long-term, MH17 marked a personal point-of-no-return for Putin. As commander-in-chief of the Russian army, he is ultimately responsible for the actions of his own military inferiors and of those they sponsored in Donbas. That responsibility will certainly be pursued by the families of crash victims, and as Putin will know from cases such as the one against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Western courts are likely to accept the case. In effect, this rules out any political guarantees, at home and abroad, were he ever to leave the presidency. Staying in power has become a matter of personal survival.

The mishaps encountered by the Russian air force, in turn, have laid bare severe limits to the country’s military might. To be sure, the Kremlin disposes of a formidable army and arsenal. However, the simultaneity of war against Ukraine, the constant nosing of NATO borders, and the air strikes against Syria have stretched the Russian army. “Mission creep” in Syria, where air strikes have not so far produced tangible results, or elsewhere against the Islamic State if it were indeed behind the downing of the Russian plane, pose a serious risk of overextending Russia militarily.

Finally, the crash in Egypt marks the coming home to roost of Russian foreign policy adventures. The interventions in Ukraine and Syria took place abroad; their direct effects on Russia were manageable; and Russian public opinion could be swayed by massive state propaganda. After Sinai, this will be much harder.

Fear of further attacks by the Islamic State is likely to increase among ordinary Russians, as will their reluctance to see Russia engaged militarily in the Muslim world. Suspicion of Islam and Muslims will grow, straining social and political ties with Muslim communities inside Russia and in neighboring countries. To allay public anxiety, the state will have to boost security measures and messaging beyond the already high levels. The domestic costs for Kremlin actions abroad are bound to go up considerably.

Notwithstanding these consequences of a seemingly endless series of air tragedies, nothing indicates so far that pilot Putin is changing course. Cursed as he appears to be, the next crash is surely in the making.

Joerg Forbrig is transatlantic fellow for Central and Eastern Europe at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Politico.eu.