Obama, Putin Talk Ukraine; Russia to Revoke Own Authority to Intervene

President Barack Obama and
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone yesterday
regarding the war going on between Ukraine’s government and
pro-Russian separatists in the country’s eastern regions. Today,
Putin made the surprising announcement that he will strip himself
of the authority to intervene in the conflict. It’s a move that
will likely be met with cautious optimism.

The White House
issued a statement on yesterday’s talk:

President Obama welcomed [Ukrainian] President [Petro]
Poroshenko’s peace plan and urged that Russia and separatist
leaders work closely with the Ukrainian government to take concrete
steps to implement it.  The President called upon President
Putin to press the separatists to recognize and abide by the
ceasefire and to halt the flow of weapons and materiel across its
border into Ukraine. The President emphasized that words must be
accompanied by actions and that the United States remains prepared
to impose additional sanctions should circumstances warrant, in
coordination with our allies and partners.

Indeed, just this past Friday the U.S. again
expanded its list of individuals under economic sanctions for
destabilizing Ukraine. Whether sanctions are having a meaningful
impact is up for debate, though Russia’s economy
hasn’t been so hot since the invasion and annexation of Crimea
in March.

For his part, “Putin stressed that priority must be given to
halting military operations and to the start of direct negotiations
between the opposing sides,” the Kremlin stated.

Today the Russian president
made a request to the Federation Council, the upper house of
parliament, that they revoke his right to stage a military
intervention in Ukraine. Tomorrow they will undoubtedly approve his
request, just as they approved his request for that questionable
authority several months ago.

Although Ukraine’s president welcomes
Putin’s move as a “first practical step,” skepticism remains with
good reason. After all, Russia last week began to
regroup thousands of troops near the Ukrainian border, less
than a month after promising to remove troops. And, the
separatists, some of whom
claim to be Chechen mercenaries on official orders, have an
uncanny ability to get their hands on
tanks, rocket launchers, and other military equipment, and
earlier today they broke
a ceasefire they agreed to several days ago.

Putin’s former chief economic adviser and current Cato Institute
fellow Andrei Illarionov
argued yesterday that Putin is, in fact, sending militants into
even more regions of the nation as part of “a new stage to
undermine the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”