The “Eurasia Center” of the Atlantic Council held a pep rally on January 11, under the title “The Case for Ukraine Retaking Crimea,” in which their panel of “experts” concluded that the “liberation” of Crimea is “absolutely possible.” The panel was chaired by Ambassador John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, and included former Bush Jr. administration foreign policy adviser Debra Cagan; Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.), former Supreme Allied Commander Europe; Dr. Leonid Gozman, Russian opposition politician and commentator; and Andriy Zagorodnyuk, distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former Minister of Defense of Ukraine. In the promo for the event, they hyped the recent “successful strikes on Russian military bases in occupied Crimea and on Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol,” as evidence that now is the time to “retake Crimea.” The general theme emphasized that an offensive in the south would break the Russian land-bridge from Russia to Ukraine, making it extremely difficult for Moscow to defend Crimea.
Zagorodnyuk led off by presenting the case, based on his article published by Foreign Affairs on Jan. 3. (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/case-taking-crimea) The battle for Crimea must be won to break Putin’s control of the Black Sea, he argued. It would be wrong to do what some experts are proposing, which is to reach an agreement with Putin in which Russia retains Crimea. The fight to “save the world order,” he said, “cannot be complete without taking back Crimea.” Either we “fight against the imperial totalitarian regime, or not at all.... Crimea must be liberated.” It was Zagorodnyuk who proclaimed that it was “absolutely possible” to succeed in this.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark agreed, but said Ukraine “does not yet have what it needs” to win. They need an “offensive capability … long-range missiles, to win the counterfire battle.” He added they must have access to Western aircraft, the M-1 tank, the Leopard tank. To provide the weapons needed, he concluded, the U.S. must mobilize its full industrial capability.
Cagan’s contribution was to insist that there must be “firmer leadership from the U.S.” Germany is finally doing the right thing. She insisted that Secretary Austin must use the Jan. 20 Ukraine Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base to call for the delivery of more powerful tanks and weapons. (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/the-case-for-ukraine-retaking-crimea/ )
