Russia

Moscow’s Cold War Against Ukraine Undiminished After the Armistice

The ceasefire agreements, signed on September 5 and 19–20, have, in no sense, halted Russia’s multi-dimensional war against Ukraine. This includes a still-“hot” military conflict and a “cold” propaganda war. Nor could these agreements stop Russia from prosecuting the conflict in the absence of effective enforcement mechanisms, while Western powers are minimally involved if at all. In this situation, it is largely up to Russia to decide whether, when or on what conditions to respect the armistice or not.

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Western Sanctions Against Russia: Putin’s First and Last Major Defeat?

Russian president Vladimir Putin thus far has not suffered a single defeat that could have seriously threatened his regime. He has been the undisputed Russian czar for almost 15 years, enjoying now absolute power that even Louis XIV of France would envy. But Putin has more in his arsenal to rely on than his “musketeers” (that is, his newly reshuffled and strengthened corps of bodyguards). He has much more powerful instruments and weapons at his disposal: most notably, the FSB and the state controlled media, to suppress and impress his own people (and many others in the West), the quickly upgraded armed forces, and the hydrocarbons exports used to intimidate Europe and – eventually – attack neighbours of choice and opportunity. There are only two failures in Putin’s foreign policy until 2014 that are worth mentioning: the independence of Kosovo in February 2008, and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya in 2011, which Russia could not or failed to prevent. Both of them enraged Putin, and have been used as pretexts for doing nasty things in the international arena.

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Russian Military Presence Enforces Division of Ukraine’s Donbas

The armistice, slowly taking hold in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (collectively known as the Donbas region), basically consigns parts of those territories to Russia’s military and political control, both directly and through local proxies. Facing Russia one-on-one, on the battlefield as well as in the negotiation format, Ukraine was left with no other realistic choice.

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What to Expect When You’re Expecting

First, let’s take a brief look at Ukraine, where Russia still has unfinished business. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has agreed on a ceasefire with the “separatists” during talks in Minsk, and then started to implement the deal without any real guarantees from Moscow concerning the withdrawal of Russian troops from the conflict area. The Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have now been given, by law, special rights for three years. In fact, the “separatists” have been legitimized and will go unpunished, whereas Ukraine is already implementing the “peace plan” that the Russian president announced two weeks ago in Mongolia.

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The Abduction of Eston Kohver: Consequences and Significance

At around 9:00 am on September 5th, Internal Security Service (Kaitsepolitsei) officer Eston Kohver was abducted by representatives of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on Estonian territory near the village of Miikse and the Luhamaa border crossing. The Russian operatives undoubtedly acted very quickly, supposedly using smoke and/or shock grenades in addition to light weapons. It now seems that the Russians are not only capable of surprising almost everyone by seizing territories of neighbouring countries (e.g. Crimea) in a few days, but also of kidnapping people—and not just anyone, but a professional—outside Russia’s territory in a few minutes.

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Call Putin’s Bluff on Natural Gas

The EU has convinced itself that its dependence on Russian natural gas supplies deprives it of leverage over Russia, thereby limiting its response to Russia’s hybrid warfare against Ukraine. In reality, however, Russia is locked into Europe as the main export market for its natural gas for decades to come.

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Minsk Meetings and the Rising Costs of War

On August 26, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko met twice in Minsk: both within the Customs Union-EU-Ukraine format, and more importantly, in a separate one-on-one session. While Minsk may now become a permanent location for Ukraine negotiations, and while the parties promised to continue trade talks, there were too few key results from these meetings. On the military conflict, the parties seem to have reached an agreement to resume talks within the “contact group” format, i.e., with separatist representatives but without either the EU or the US, notwithstanding the fact that prior talks in this format have already proven ineffective.

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French politician and businessman to build historical theme parks in Russia and Crimea

Russia needs now more than ever supporters in the West. Or rather any well-known Europeans who would readily accept Russian money and Byzantine courtesy, and above all turn a blind eye to the Russian parallel reality and the serious threat posed by Muscovy to Ukraine and Europe as a whole. Putin seems willing to generously reward, and obviously let exploit by his propaganda machine, any new Schröders and Depardieus. To give to the Russians the false impression that he is still accepted and even praised by Western personalities and celebrities, and to seed as much discord as possible in European politics and public debate.

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