... the European Union does not have any objections to this, but nuances determine the content of the relations between the two sides.
Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region. Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region
Put bluntly, these nuances are NATO and the European Union. Together, they form the Euro-Atlantic community, which unites most of the planet’s economically developed military powers. This contradiction was barely noticeable during the initial post-Soviet years when Russia was still ...
... country first needs to shed its dependence on any single strong external actor, be it Russia, Europe, the U.S., or, in the longer term, China. It would be fairly possible to create effective, law-governed economic institutions without joining the EU and NATO.
Second, Ukraine needs to mould its youth in a way that would facilitate negotiating practices and an ability to achieve a compromise. No matter how skilful the Western European advisors may be, Ukraine will have a hard time introducing democratic institutions ...
... of these preconditions are currently absent in the case of Donbass. Therefore, we cannot push for the application of the South Tyrol model until such prerequisites are created. This will be difficult, but not impossible.
Andrey Kortunov:
How to Stop NATO
Going Beyond Minsk
Using the best practice from South Africa, one then is lead to think of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Donbas, reporting live on TV in Ukraine and Russia with an annual report. More than twenty countries have done this successfully in the past.
However, the problem of reconciliation is not limited to Donbass only. Both Russia and Ukraine today lack the know-how for true reconciliation,...
... will be posed by the need to secure freezing the conflict in the east of that country, provide for Crimea's security, facilitate reliable navigation in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, maintain control over the Kerch Strait, and prevent deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine. Even in the best-case scenario (which we may be observing at the moment, because the situation could certainly be much worse), these issues cannot be entirely resolved in the foreseeable future; they will continue to demand Russia's attention ...
... in 2014, the breakout from the post-Cold War, Western-dominated order was complete. The takeover of Crimea and support for separatism in Donbass did not presage a policy of reconquering Eastern Europe, as many in the West feared, but it clearly set Ukraine and other former Soviet republics off limits to any future NATO enlargement. The security buffer was back. If the use of force in Ukraine, from the Kremlin’s standpoint, was essentially defensive, Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015 was a risky gambit to decide geopolitical outcomes in the Middle East ...
...
sceptical
to that advice. Ceteris paribus, the difference of expenditures could have been mitigated by a joint position of NATO states on other more pressing issues; however, it seems that internal discontent over U.S. position is on its rise.
If one ... ... inconsistent in its policies towards North Korea, the Middle East (predominantly Syria, Turkey and Iran), China, Venezuela, and Ukraine. And this inconsistency doesn’t seem to be a part of a grand strategy defined within the laws of “realpolitik”, ...
... going back to the 1990s. Russia’s leaders no longer want their country to “belong to the civilized world,” as the phrase once went, but instead want Russia to be a great power with global reach. Nor is there any going back to 2013, just before the Ukraine crisis. In any case, that was hardly a happy time in Russia-EU relations, with intense feelings of malaise on both sides.
Despite the ongoing U.S.-Russia confrontation, the NATO-Russia military standoff in Europe is still relatively low-level. While preparing for various contingencies, neither side seriously believes that initiating a military conflict with the other in that part of the world would give it any advantages....
... criticism from the numerous opponents of a rapprochement with Moscow, and EU policy will devolve into its lowest common denominator from among the positions of its members every single time. Furthermore, since new problems will continue to pop up for bureaucrats ... ... costs look particularly important.
First, there needs to be a new consorted effort on reaching a sustainable peace in Eastern Ukraine. Political developments in Ukraine might present new opportunities — if not for a comprehensive settlement, then for ...
... generations. The future positioning of Belarus as an intermediary between Russia and Europe is a coming challenge to the wisdom of Moscow’s foreign policy. This will not be easy, given that virtually the entire western border of Russia, from Norway to Ukraine, has turned into a new line in the military standoff between Russia and NATO countries and their partners and wards.
This article was originally published in Spanish as “La cambiante identidad de Rusia: en busca de un papel en el siglo XXI,” in Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior, no. 115, Jan-April 2019, 27–43.
...
... pragmatism. Still, I think we should wait for his first key staff appointments. In any case, they will be working within the pro-Western paradigm and lead the country towards collaboration with international financial bodies, the European Union and NATO. Russia–Ukraine relations will largely depend on the general trends in U.S.–Russia relations, and I think gradually moving away from escalation is the maximum that Kiev would be willing to do in its relations with Moscow. This should probably start with goodwill ...
