On visit to Massachusetts, former presidential advisor on Russia warns of ‘risk of miscalculation’ in Ukraine crisis

MEDFORD, Mass. — A former presidential advisor who has authored biographies about Russian President Vladimir Putin is describing the latest Russian moves in Ukraine as “an act of post-colonial aggression.”

Fiona Hill, former senior director for Europe and Russia at the United States Security Council under then-President Donald Trump, made those remarks during a visit to Tufts University on Tuesday. Hill is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Hill said it appears that Putin is “trying to turn the clock back” on about three decades of Ukrainian independence.

“Basically saying, sorry, we don’t recognize our independence and sovereignty and we’re going to change it. So the effect that this could have on the world system, not just on European security, is pretty profound,” Hill said. “If you think about all of the territorial disputes that we’ve got worldwide, you know, there’s so many with China, for example, and its neighbors but you know, countries like Turkey and Greece and Europe and many others besides, this would set a precedent here for the use of force or coercive power and pressure to change the state of affairs in similar disputes.”

President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered heavy U.S. financial sanctions against Russian banks and oligarchs, stepping up the West’s confrontation with Moscow, even as Russian lawmakers authorized Putin to use military force outside their country.

In televised remarks, Biden accused Putin of flagrantly violating international law in what he called the “beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine,” and promised that more sanctions would be coming if Russia proceeds further.

“It certainly seems like what Putin set up yesterday is an increased attack and escalation in military terms on Ukraine,” said Christopher Miller, co-director of The Russia and Eurasia Program at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. “He made a 45-minute speech yesterday, which was entirely focused on questioning the idea of Ukraine’s independence, which certainly seems to me to suggest that he’s got more planned beyond what he’s already done.”

Hill described Putin’s latest orders and speeches as “highly escalatory” and warned about “lots of risk of miscalculation” in the region.

“We’ve got to hope that somewhere in the Russian system, some cooler heads will prevail to try to rein this in and get us to a point where we can talk about how we go forward, where we take into consideration some of Russia’s security concerns,” Hill said.

“I think if we look back at the last eight years, we’ve seen a war in Ukraine that’s killed slightly over 10,000 people. That’s horrifying. But we could see that many people killed in the next days or weeks in Ukraine. This would be a conflict in Europe that we just haven’t thought about for almost a century,” Miller said.

This piece was re-published from WCVB.