Editorial:  If Putin doesn’t back down on Ukraine, the world should impose more sanctions

It shouldn’t have taken the deaths of 298 airline passengers and crew to concentrate the world’s attention on the civil war in Ukraine and Russia’s role in fomenting armed resistance to the government there. President Obama was right to insist that the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 should be a “wake-up call� about the importance of ending this conflict.

Questions remain about the disaster, questions that must be resolved by an independent and unhampered inquiry. But it seems clear that the aircraft was shot down Thursday by a surface-to-air missile launched from an area of Ukraine controlled by Russia-supported separatists.

According to the twisted reasoning of Russian President Vladimir Putin, that fact somehow indicts the government of Ukraine. “This tragedy would not have happened,� he said, “if there had been peace on that land, or in any case if military operations in southeastern Ukraine had not been renewed.� Never mind that the Ukrainian government had waited patiently before moving militarily against pro-Russia insurgents after promising amnesty for insurgents who have “no blood on their hands.�

Putin is engaging in projection here. If preventing peace in Ukraine equals complicity in this tragedy, Russia is a likelier culprit. But there may be even more direct Russian responsibility. In her presentation to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power raised the possibility that Russian personnel offered “technical assistance� in the operation of a sophisticated surface-to-air missile system observed near where the plane came down.

For a while this year it seemed that Russia was inclined to cut ties with the separatists and negotiate in good faith with Ukraine’s new president, Petro Poroshenko, on political reforms in Ukraine that would provide a measure of autonomy for Russian-speaking regions. But in announcing new U.S. sanctions Wednesday, Obama said that Russia hadn’t taken steps to halt the flow of weapons and fighters across the border into Ukraine.

On Friday, speaking after the destruction of Malaysia Flight 17, Obama reiterated his call for an end to Russian support for the insurgents, which he said would end the violence and lead to the political accommodations inside Ukraine that Putin himself has called for. “He has the most control over that situation, and so far, at least, he has not exercised it.�

Perhaps the shock and horror at Thursday’s tragedy will cause Putin to reconsider his slow-motion destabilization of Ukraine. But if he doesn’t, other nations — particularly in Europe — should follow the U.S. in imposing additional sanctions.

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