The Ukraine, Russia and the European Union

I have a little bit of space to devote to devote to events in the Ukraine. This is proving to be as much a flashpoint as other conflicts. The western media is painting this as a independence movement against the Big Bad Bear that is bullying its southern neighbor.

Reality is much more complicated than that, as shown by the following articles.

First, the western perspective. Expect trouble wherever John McCain turns up.

Ukraine protesters return en masse to central Kiev for pro-EU campaign

Hundreds of thousands brave freezing weather to demand EU integration despite suspension of negotiations on the agreement

The Guardian,

15 Decvember, 2013

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians braved freezing temperatures and aggressive policing to return to central Kiev on Sunday to demand political change, sending a message to authorities that the crisis over the government's failure to sign an EU integration pact is unlikely to end soon.

With the news that the EU has suspended negotiations on the agreement likely to further inflame the mood, at least 200,000 people packed into Independence Square, known as the maidan, to hear music and speeches from the trio of Ukrainian politicians who have attempted to lead the spontaneous outpouring of anger.

They were joined early in the afternoon by US Republican senator John McCain, who has made a sport of baiting Vladimir Putin at various locations across the former Soviet Union.

"The destiny you seek lies in Europe," McCain told the crowd, to rapturous applause. "People of Ukraine, this is your moment. The free world is with you, America is with you, I am with you."

McCain was joined by a Democratic senator Chris Murphy, who told the crowds they were making history. "If you are successful, the US Senate will stand with you all the way," he said, in comments likely to infuriate Moscow, which has accused Brussels and the west of interfering in Ukrainian politics.

President Viktor Yanukovych and his government have given mixed signals about signing the agreement. The president has said on several occasions that the country is still on the path to European integration. However, the prime minister, Mykola Azarov, said at the weekend that establishing closer ties with Russia was the way forward.

"We understood that signing this agreement [with the EU] would mean bankrupting us," he said on Saturday. "We need to restore trade with the Russian Federation."

Yanukovych travels to Moscow to meet Putin on Tuesday, and the opposition fear he may sign up to the Customs Union, a trade bloc that the Kremlin is keen to bolster with the addition of Ukraine.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland party, told the crowds that if Yanukovych signed the agreement in Moscow, he should never return to Kiev.

"What is happening on the maidan today? It is an anti-colonial revolution," said a former interior minister, Yuriy Lutsenko, from the stage. "Above all, Ukrainians turned out to say to Moscow: 'We are no longer under your command, we are an independent country.'"

A rival rally organised by the government to show that the maidan protests are not representative of all Ukraine turned out to be a dud, despite the presence of tens of thousands of people bussed in from the east and south of the country.

Several dozen military tents and field kitchens were set up in a park near the parliament, offering hot food and tea to those taking part, many of whom brandished the blue flags of Yanukovych's Party of Regions. But their weary demeanour and eagerness to leave for home after a few hours was in striking contrast to the positive mood on the maidan.

The majority of those present were employees of state-owned enterprises, who were shipped into the capital on specially chartered trains or buses organised by Yanukovych's party. Many of them admitted privately that they had been paid to attend.

Nevertheless, some were disturbed by events on the maidan. "Their maidan could lead to a civil war, and we do not need that," said Mikhailo Karavayev, a 20-year-old businessman from Zaporizhia in eastern Ukraine.

"It's impossible that these people are just not working for a month, the country needs to work," said Alla Kravchenko, 59, who had come for the day by chartered bus and was dancing with a Party of Regions flag. She said the conflict should be resolved by negotiations and not by street protests. "We are one country, and nobody should be allowed to split us up."

With the often changing demands of the opposition leaders, the surprising durability of the maidan protest, and the unpredictability of Yanukovych's decision making, few are brave enough to predict how the standoff will end.

Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst, said there were three scenarios. In the first, the authorities could stick it out to new year, and hope the maidan dissolved of its own accord during the holiday season.

The second option would be a renewed attempt to disperse the protests: "The 'force' wing among Yanukovych's inner circle remains very active … The maidan is an irritant to Yanukovych and I'm not sure he wants to bear it for several more weeks."

However, any move against the maidan would involve heavy force as the square is aggressively defended. Thousands of riot police spent several hours dismantling barricades in an edgy standoff in the early hours of Wednesday, but later retreated, and protesters rebuilt the barricades twice as high.

The final option is a compromise involving the sacking of the interior minister or the prime minister. "If a neutral government of technocrats is formed instead of the current one, it could relieve tensions and calm people down," said the analyst.

Oleksandr Volkov, an MP from the Party of Regions, told the Guardian that parliament should meet to solve the crisis in the coming week.

"Some people have already been punished," he said, referring to the mayor of Kiev and Yanukovych's deputy security chief, who have been suspended pending an investigation into violence against protesters on 30 November that led to the protest snowballing. "We will also punish some more people," he added, and even held out the possibility that Azarov could be fired.

And the Russian point-of-view

Lavrov: We did not threaten Kiev with sanctions, only warned of privilege loss

There has been no Russian blackmail against wannabe EU-member Ukraine, and existing agreements between the two countries clearly state that only certain trade privileges could be scrapped, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

RT,

16 December, 2013

The free trade agreement between members of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which was signed and ratified by Ukraine in 2012, lists all the measures a country could use in the event of threatening the economic interests of others – and this does not include any sanctions, Lavrov said during a Monday press conference in Brussels, where he arrived for Russian-EU talks.

The agreement, which in fact was lobbied by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, implies that any such state risks only losing membership privileges, the Russian FM stressed. In the case of Ukraine, it means going back to ‘Most Favored Nation’ (MFN) treatment defined by the World Trade Organization (WTO), of which both countries are member states. MFN is the term used to describe the code of equal treatment given by WTO nations to other member countries.

Russia would obviously need to scrap trade privileges with Ukraine to protect its own industries from collapsing if Kiev enters the EU trade zone, Lavrov said.

“One should understand, that economic issues should be built on economic considerations and not on ideas of utilizing the geopolitical space, and doing so for free,” the foreign minister added.

The very idea of Ukraine having to choose between Moscow and Brussels is “false,” Lavrov stressed. The Russian side has clearly shown to the EU that both the Russia-led Customs Union and the proposed Eurasian Union are actually leading to strengthening economic ties with Europe by making the economies of member states more competitive. Such ties should be based on equal, mutually beneficial terms – not the “slave-like” conditions that the EU would currently offer those countries.

The Russian minister said he asked on Monday how many association agreements the EU has with other states, adding that the EU could not give a clear explanation of why the states are not rushing to ratify such deals.

The real reason for that is the EU’s wish to “obtain a practically unlimited access to the markets of the countries, which are being offered such agreements” at a time when their economies are obviously not as competitive as those of EU member states.

If states with weaker economies merge with the EU, their industries will lose competitiveness – which is why certain countries are unwilling to sign an EU association agreement straight away, Lavrov stressed.

Moreover, one might get an impression that the EU wants certain countries to open up their markets “exactly at the time when it is head and shoulders above them in competitiveness,” he said.

Lavrov added that he believes it is not by chance that the EU-Ukraine association deal, as well as the EU’s other agreements with Eastern Partnership states, were prepared “in secret.” Only after the agreements had been initialed – that is, after they became not subject to any further change – the EU published them, thus making some of the largest trade partners of those states, such as Russia, unable to discuss the effects they could cause on trade relations.

The foreign minister called on the EU to stop “holding back from one another the things being planned or intended in connection with the countries that are big trade partners of both Russia and the EU.”

Moscow confirms deployment of Iskander missiles on NATO borders

The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed media reports on the deployment of short-range Iskander missiles in the country’s west, near its borders with the Baltic states and NATO members, saying that it does not violate international agreements.

RT,

16 December, 2013

German newspaper Bild wrote this weekend that Russia stationed several Iskander tactical ballistic missile systems - which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads - in its westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad, along the border with Baltic states. The paper said it obtained “secret satellite” images showing at least 10 Russian missiles close to the EU border, which were deployed over the past year.

Commenting on the matter, Moscow confirmed that it did station the missiles, which have been designated by NATO as SS-26 Stone, in the region.

“Rocket and artillery units of the Western Military District are really armed with Iskander tactical missile systems,” Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, head of the Defense Ministry’s press service, told reporters on Monday.

“The concrete areas of the deployment of Iskander missile battalions in the Western Military District do not contradict any international agreements or treaties,” he added, as quoted by Interfax.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Juozas Olekas said earlier that he was concerned over the reports of Russian missiles near his country’s border. He added that the former Soviet state had discussed with its neighbors and NATO partners “how to react and protect” themselves, because “any incidents were hypothetically possible,” Delfi news website reported on Monday.

Neighboring Latvia sees no threat to its security from the Iskanders being stationed in the Kaliningrad region, according to Defense Minister Artis Pabriks. “NATO guarantees to us rather high security level,” he said in an interview with LNT on Monday, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

Meanwhile, Poland says it is worried about the deployment of Russian missiles near its border and plans to hold consultations on the matter with alliance partners.

Iskanders have been stationed in the region for over 18 months now, a senior official at Russia’s Defense Ministry told Izvestia daily.

“Everything works as planned there. I don’t know why the Germans are raising a scare now,” the source noted.

Russia is not going to ease its defense on European borders, where the western military alliance keeps its strategic missile forces, said deputy head of the State Duma’s defense committee, Viktor Zavarzin.

“NATO has American tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Who can it be aimed against if not Iran? Only against us,” he told the daily. The official pointed out that Russian missiles do not pose a threat to anyone. Rather, they are solely for defensive purposes.

The deployment of Iskanders in Kaliningrad came in response to the development of the US missile defense system in Europe – which has long been a stumbling block in relations between Moscow and Washington.

Back in November 2011, when the US failed to agree to make the missile defense shield a joint project with Russia, then-President Dmitry Medvedev announced sweeping plans to address what Moscow considered to be a threat to national security. He said he would deploy strike systems in the west and south of the country, as well as station Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region in order to counter the risk posed by the European missile defense shield.

Moscow has long been calling for legally-binding guarantees that the missile defense system will not be aimed against Russia, but the US has so far refused to deliver such a promise. For years, the necessity of building the missile defense shield in Europe was justified by the perceived threat from countries like Iran. However, as the controversy over Tehran’s nuclear program seems to be nearing an end, the US is not altering its intentions.

“We realize clearly that the anti-missile defense system is only called defensive, while in fact it is a significant part of the strategic offensive potential,” President Vladimir Putin said in his address to the Federal Assembly last week.

Kusturica: Why does NATO still exist? To fight terrorism? It's laughable!

RT

As Brussels goes into a renewed push to bring more countries into its fold, the divisions between nations in fact go deeper. The call for European integration rings on Kiev squares - and some fear it will turn into western expansion. Who knows what's for the best? Today we look at the picture not through the eyes of experts or politicians. We ask a great artist about the changes in the air: Emir Kusturica - filmmaker, actor, writer, and musician is on SophieCo