Russia’s ambassador to the EU asserted, “We will not invade
Ukraine unless we are provoked.” Indeed, but he left out the fact that it will
be Moscow that provides the provocation. After Vladimir Putin recognized
Donetsk and Luhansk, he ordered troops in eastern Ukraine to “perform
peacekeeping functions.” Russia has been preparing to stage a “false flag
operation” to justify its aggression under the auspices of “humanitarian relief.”

Last week Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced that Moscow started returning troops to
their bases after military drills. But the relief was short lived: On the same
day, President Vladimir Putin fretted without evidence that the situation in the eastern
Donbas region of Ukraine looks like a “genocide.” The Russian media fell
in line, announcing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s
preparation for a “massacre of Russians.” All of this dovetails with US
intelligence suggesting a Kremlin plan to release a fake video
showing a fake Ukrainian attack as the pretext for an invasion.

Much like Hitler’s spurious claims of attacks on ethnic Germans in Poland prior to his 1939 invasion, Putin has made great hay over the supposed persecution of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. But the facts are immaterial; Putin will assert a right to protect Russians wherever they are found. As Russia’s ambassador to the EU underscored, Moscow is within its rights to launch a “counterattack” if it has to protect Russian citizens living in eastern Ukraine.

What are those rights, beyond Putin’s reimagining of the
Russian Empire? The likely justification will come under the guise of the
Responsibility to Protect (R2P). The R2P norm was established in the UN in
2005 after the international community failed to adequately respond to
atrocities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Its laudable goals include
ensuring that all people have a fundamental right to be protected from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

In years past, Putin had been skeptical of the concept of
“humanitarian intervention,” particularly after NATO’s 1999 bombing of
Yugoslavia. He labeled that action “illegal” as it was undertaken without the
consent of the United Nations Security Council. So doubtful has he been of the
notion of R2P, that upon gaining power, he approved a “Foreign
Policy Concept” asserting that “attempts to introduce into the
international parlance such concepts as ‘humanitarian intervention’ and
‘limited sovereignty’ in order to justify unilateral power actions bypassing
the U.N. Security Council are not acceptable.” In Putin’s first speech in
the State Duma in 2000, he critiqued post–Cold War military operations as
executed under the guise of “humanitarian intervention.”

But that was then, and this is now. A foxier Vladimir Putin
later endorsed the R2P doctrine, likely going along with the crowd because he
believed he could prevent Western interventions through Russia’s veto power in
the UN Security Council. R2P was clearly intended only to serve Moscow, and
Putin was quick to exploit the notion.

In 2008, Russia justified its invasion of Georgia on the basis of Moscow’s responsibility to protect Russian nationals because Georgia was allegedly committing genocide in South Ossetia. In 2014, Russia again used a similar logic for its intervention in Ukraine, which Vladimir Putin described as a “humanitarian mission.” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov used similar rhetoric: “We are talking here about protection of our citizens and compatriots, about protection of the most fundamental of human rights.”

Fast forward to today, and Russia is preparing a similar
play in Ukraine. With the flurry of diplomatic meetings that Russia uses to
distract and humiliate its counterparts, Putin may well argue that he has tried
all diplomatic means possible. Nominally, Russia cannot resort to the use of
force without authorization by the UN Security Council or justification under
“self-defense.” But “protecting Russian citizens” and their human rights may
provide exactly the window dressing needed to launch an assault.

The job for both Ukraine and its Western supporters is to deny Moscow the window dressing it needs. The Biden administration and the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson have been aggressive in calling out Russia’s plots and plans. But there are more false flag efforts to come. And there is indeed an R2P — a responsibility to protect: The world has a responsibility to protect a sovereign state from unprovoked aggression, and Ukraine has a responsibility to protect its people. Russia must not again make a mockery of the international system.

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