Category Archives: Politics

Britain, European Union, Foreign Affairs, Government, Military, NATO, Politics, Russia, Society, Ukraine, United Nations, United States

Russian troops amass on Ukraine’s border…

UKRAINE

Intro: As world leaders tell Vladimir Putin to back off, 80,000 Russian soldiers have amassed on Ukraine’s borders. The fear now is that there could be a full-scale invasion…

Ukraine has warned that 80,000 Russian troops have amassed on its borders and could invade. World leaders have told Vladimir Putin to back off.

A senior security chief in Kiev said Moscow could launch a full-scale invasion and Russian troops would be in the Ukrainian capital within ‘two or three hours’ of the order to advance.

Photographs of Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers close to Ukraine’s borders are adding to the tensions.

British officials have been receiving reports about Russian troops massing on the border since Tuesday and are concerned by the show of force.

British intelligence is unsure whether the movements are intended to back up the annexation of Crimea, preparation for an invasion or simply defensive.

Moscow’s show of force started earlier this week as Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, met Barack Obama in the Oval Office and NATO continued military exercises in Poland.

During a week of rising tensions, G7 leaders, including David Cameron and Mr Obama, warned Russia not to annex the Crimea after a referendum in the province, tomorrow, which has been taken over by pro-Putin troops.

Their statement warns the Russian president to ‘cease all efforts to change the status of Crimea contrary to Ukrainian law and in violation of international law’ and threatens ‘further action’ if Moscow seizes Crimea.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Russian MPs who voted to use force in Ukraine and Kremlin officials behind the invasion would be hit with asset freezes and a travel ban to the European Union – most likely to be issued at a Brussels summit on Monday.

But the main concern of Western leaders is to deter Russia from seizing the rest of Eastern Ukraine.

Andriy Parubly, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, has said that even Kiev may not be safe from Putin’s troops, who were regrouping in ‘an offensive manner’.

Mr Parubly claimed that forces massing included ‘over 80,000 personnel, up to 270 tanks, 180 armoured vehicles, 380 artillery systems, 18 multiple-launch missile systems, 140 combat aircraft, 90 combat helicopters and 19 warships and cutters’. He added: ‘Critical is the situation not only in Crimea, but along the entire north-eastern frontier. In fact, Russian troop units are two or three hours of travel from Kiev.’

Former Putin adviser Andrey Illarionov has predicted that in addition to Crimea, Putin may move to annex other major cities in Ukraine – including Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, Kherson and Odessa.

Pictures of Russian armoured vehicles on the move in regions close to the Ukrainian border include motorised infantry vehicles and tanks. The military movements are also said to include Grad BM-21 multiple rocket launch vehicles. Tanks have also been pictured being carried by rail in Belgorod, and are reported to be parked in a village just 12 miles from the border.

The moves came as the Russian armed forces announced a huge military exercise by its airborne troops. The three-day exercise ordered by Putin involved a vast ‘landing operation’ by 4,000 paratroopers.

NATO has conducted its own show of force to reassure countries in Eastern Europe. The US and Poland began war games during the week that involved at least 12 American F-16 fighter jets. A joint naval exercise of US, Bulgarian and Romanian naval forces in the Black Sea also started.

Events have been building to a crunch point when tomorrow Crimea will vote on whether to join Russia. If Putin recognises the province as Russian, sanctions will follow.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met in London yesterday, but as expected those talks failed to make any progress on the crisis.

Infographic:

Geo-political infographic of Ukraine and of Crimea.

Geo-political infographic of Ukraine and of Crimea

 

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Economic, European Union, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, Ukraine, United States

Ukraine and its future stability…

Intro: For Ukraine to have a stable future it is imperative that Russia, the European Union and the US work together in collaboration if that stability is to be assured

Despite all the tumult of recent weeks, the crisis in Ukraine is just at the beginning. Europe’s seventh most populous country will be without a fully-elected government until at least May, a situation that has arisen following its former president who was stripped of his power and who has been on the run since being forced out. It is believed Viktor Yanukovych has found safe haven in Russia, Ukraine’s closest ally in the region.

The underlying mood appears to be one of score settling. Separatism in the east is stirring, especially in Crimea, which is predominately Russian by culture and history. Ukraine is strategically important for Moscow: the Russian’s maintain a major naval base at Sevastopol, allowing the Russian navy to deploy quickly into the Black Sea as the need arises.

Ukraine is broke, precipitated by the immediate origins of the crisis which was economic. The currency, the hryvnia, has depreciated by 12 per cent since the start of the year, and the public finances are teetering on the verge of collapse. According to the interim-government in Ukraine, one which is attempting to aid transition to a newly elected government, the country needs £21 billion between now and the end of 2015 simply to pay its bills. Mr Yanukovych is widely reported as having taken bribes in accepting Russian aid and membership of the Moscow sponsored Eurasian Union, rather than entering into trade deals and agreements with the EU.

The West needs to be careful in any vainglorious attempt of portraying or by assuming it has won following the overthrow of Mr Yanukovych. The geopolitics, best seen as a tug-of-war, is fraught with difficulties. For Ukraine to have a stable future it is imperative that Russia, the European Union and the US work together in collaboration if that stability is to be assured. The danger is that any one of these superpowers treats the country as the prize in a zero-sum game.

America’s approach has been cautious. President Obama has, thus far, shown no desire for a full-scale showdown with Moscow. But this attitude is shared by his European allies, too, as they strive to put together an economic rescue package in which Russia would ideally be involved. In reality, though, the real uncertainty surrounds how Moscow will react to the fate of its southern neighbour. Where culture and history are so closely interwoven, Russia is likely to be wary of any western driven agenda.

The initial response of the Kremlin to events in Kiev was one of ferocious outrage. Dmitry Medvedev, the Prime Minister, accused Europe of turning a blind eye to the dictatorial and ‘sometimes terrorist methods’ used by the new authorities to suppress dissent in eastern Ukraine – the area of the country which is particularly sympathetic to Russian ideals. Mr Medvedev has also declared that the opposition had seized power by an ‘armed mutiny’, a belief which could still lead to direct military action by Russia in the Crimea. A request by the Crimeans for Russian protection would be the pretext for the worst possible outcome.

However, since that outburst, the tone from Moscow has been more restrained. Earlier this week, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, indicated that the policy of ‘non-intervention’ would continue. He said, rather curiously, that it was in Moscow’s interests for Ukraine to be part of a ‘broad European family’. However, the Kremlin has an array of options of how it might influence events such as how it will control vital gas exports to all parts of the Ukraine.

Gauging how the crisis will end is no easy task. A form of partition is one possibility, but that can only happen if the considered consent is given by all interested parties. Demarcation along similar lines to the 1993 ‘velvet divorce’ between the Czech Republic and Slovakia is one model that might prove helpful if negotiators are looking for historical references in bringing about an ordered and peaceful outcome in Ukraine.

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European Union, Foreign Affairs, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, Ukraine

Ukraine and the difficulties ahead…

UKRAINE

Over the past two weeks events in Ukraine have moved fast. No day over the last fortnight has past in which something critical has happened. Following the ferocious rioting that led to 88 deaths, Viktor Yanukovych, the country’s former president, was dramatically dethroned. Events in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, are being perceived as one of the most epochal developments in central Europe since the end of the Second World War. Disruption is far from over.

Ukraine is deeply divided, with half of the population in support of joining the European Union. These people see the benefits brought to Poland, a country of similar size to the Ukraine, that is now firmly embedded within the EU and Nato. Poland’s GDP is now three times what it once was and people there enjoy living standards that are envied by those Ukrainians who wish to see their country afforded similar benefits. The other half, though, are deeply loyal to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and aim to see Ukraine integrated as part of Putin’s wider Eurasia Union, a new and emerging federation of countries aligned to the political aspirations of Moscow.

Ukraine’s future leadership and direction is far from settled. With no clear coalescence around an alternative leader, Ukraine remains more representative of a volcano that has erupted with extraordinary violence and with the after-effects still yet to be felt. Russia has been a dominant force over much of Ukraine’s history, and the world awaits to see how Putin will play his hand.

Hidden from view in the confrontation that has ensued in the centre of Kiev is a chronic economic and financial crisis. Whoever replaces Mr Yanukovych will need to tackle pressing issues to secure continued Russian funding of the country’s debt. Without this, a more widespread collapse beckons.

For its part, the EU needs to look critically at its mooted trade agreements with the country to ensure a fair balance of reciprocal benefits. A major criticism at the present is that these favour EU exports over Ukraine’s well-endowed agricultural sector. Given this delicate economic situation, it is not just Russia but also the West that needs to proceed with great caution before the election of a new government in Ukraine.

The great fear for Western leaders is that Russia will intervene militarily in the affairs of its most important geopolitical neighbour. Such a threat cannot be ruled out. Putin will view this kind of struggle as a matter of personal prestige – he has a renowned reputation in humiliating his rivals, rather than a record of striking appeasement and deals with them. While in power, Mr Yanukovych, became one of Russia’s main allies.

That Mr Putin may act rashly in the days ahead was one of the ‘many dangers’ that William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, has alluded to. Mr Hague also highlighted the possibility of renewed violence, or that ethnically Russian parts of the country, such as Crimea, will attempt to secede. This situation represents more of a direct challenge to the EU in particular, which has been attempting to woo Ukraine with a trade deal worth hundreds of millions of euros a year. Such a deal is not the same as membership of the EU, but for many it will not be far off. It would, for example, offer Ukraine guaranteed entry into a huge and developed market on its doorstep. Unlike Mr Putin’s recent offers and bribes to his neighbour of cheap gas and serviceable debt, the EU deal has few strings attached.

Ukraine needs a government, and elections will be held in May. In the coming days and weeks, Western leaders must do everything they can to promote a working economy in Ukraine so that its institutions can be free from corruption and outside interference.

Setting out a path to normalisation will be difficult, not least because the opposition forces in Ukraine are deeply divided. Hatred of Viktor Yanukovych masks profound differences in belief and ideology. An early and sympathetic engagement is vital if Ukraine’s open revolt and revolution is not to shatter the country even further and spark dangerous unrest across the entire region.

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