Interview with Ambassador Francisco Pascual de la Parte, author of "The Returning Empire. The Ukrainian War 2014-2017." 

Francisco Pascual de la Parte, during the presentation of his book [Manuel Castells].

INTERVIEW / Vitaliy Stepanyuk

Few have such direct knowledge of Russia's relations with Ukraine and other territories of the former USSR as Francisco Pascual de la Parte, who has been minister-counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Moscow, ambassador to Kazakhstan and consul general in St. Petersburg, among other posts. He is the author of the book "The Returning Empire. The Ukrainian War 2014-2017." During his presentation at the University of Navarra, Global Affairs was able to talk extensively with the Spanish diplomat about the Ukrainian crisis and Russian foreign policy.

From the point of view of the geopolitics of the region, who are the main players?

The main actors in the Ukrainian crisis are divided into two groups: those directly involved in the armed conflict and those not involved in it, but intervening in the crisis. The main actors, obviously, are the Ukrainian government and the separatists of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian Donbass Republics (Donetsk and Lugansk regions), backed and armed by Russia.

In a second concentric circle, the players are Ukraine and Russia, which has annexed Crimea in response to the overthrow of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and which, as I say, also supports Ukrainian separatists.

In a third concentric circle, there is the discrepancy between Russia and the European Union (EU), which considers the annexation of Crimea and the Russian intervention in the Donbass illegal, for which it has imposed economic sanctions, responded to by Russia.

In a fourth concentric circle we have a rivalry between Russia and the United States, which accuses Moscow of violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine and thereby undermining security in Europe. This confrontation has consequences for the entire planet, as it generates mistrust and hostility between the two superpowers that has repercussions on their mutual relations, fundamentally on disarmament treaties and on their positions in crises such as those in Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and elsewhere in the world.

Finally, we have the confrontation between Russia and NATO, to which Russia blames the hostile initiative of having extended eastward, thus provoking the Russian reaction when, theoretically, after the fall of the USSR, NATO had promised not to carry out its enlargement.

All these are the actors. Some participate in the first concentric circle, others in the second and others in all.

2. In relation to the previous question, what is the main goal in this struggle?

The answer to this question will depend on the actor we focus on. Obviously, the leaders of the rogue republics are not pursuing the same thing as the Ukrainian government or the Russian government. In my opinion, the Russian regime is seeking to ensure its security by regaining great power status. By controlling the post-Soviet space and pushing for the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) including Ukraine, Russia expected to strengthen its international position. But with Ukraine refusing to join the EEU and preferring an association with the Brussels EU, Russia's plan was badly damaged. In other words, as Brzezinski, former US National Security Advisor, used to say, Russia with Ukraine is an empire, but without Ukraine it is a normal state. But since it is not resigned to being a normal state, it does not want to lose control over Ukraine. Russia believes that this is the only way it can guarantee its security.

The goal pursued by the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk Republics is not very clear, because it has been changing over time. First it was autonomy, then independence, then annexation to Russia, then autonomy again. Several of the leaders who proclaimed independence have disappeared under strange circumstances, being replaced by other leaders.

At the moment the leadership of these republics is entirely under Moscow's control. Theoretically, one should conclude from this that the end of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics is the same as the end of the Russian leadership. But I am not so sure, since there were leaders in the governments of those republics who, at first, wanted another state subject . That is, not to be part of Ukraine, but not part of Russia either, even if they gave primacy to the relationship with Russia. A kind of state that would be autonomous from both Russia and Ukraine, but within the so-called "Russian world": a set of cultural patterns, beliefs and customs that identify the Russian people, based on the traditional values of the Russia of the Czars. Some of its most national-patriotic leaders advocated, after proclaiming secession, fidelity to Orthodoxy, protection of the family, prohibition of abortions, gambling, prostitution, divorce.... In short, a government that would not have found a place neither in a Ukraine integrated into the EU, open, therefore, to assimilate the gender ideology and other values contrary to the "Russian world", nor in a Russia like the present one, which they considered governed by disbelieving ex-communists and former heads of the Soviet intelligence services. The first separatist leaders renamed their new state "Novorrossiya", borrowing the name from Tsarist-era Eastern Ukraine, whose territories had been conquered by Catherine the Great from the Turks and Ukrainian Cossacks in the 18th century.

But this plan did not seem to suit Russia. At a certain point, Moscow stopped supporting the "Novorossiyaproject " and provoked the replacement of the leaders who advocated it. Why? Many analysts believe that the emergence of a state like Novorossiya would have given wings to the already powerful Russian nationalist current of the extreme right (advocated, among others, by Alexander Duguin) that accused Putin of treason for not having unceremoniously invaded all of Ukraine, and would encourage the emergence within Russia itself of analogous initiatives in other territories of the Russian Federation where traditionalist national-patriotic elements had popular support. Consequently, Russia seemed to opt for keeping these republics within Ukraine, but controlled by it, or, in the extreme case, proceeding to a de facto annexation. Both solutions were to Russia's advantage, as they prevented Ukraine from joining NATO and gave it sufficient room for maneuver as a sovereign state, having within it the Trojan horse of those republics, controlled by Kremlin-friendly leaders. 

The EU's goal is stability and prosperity on its eastern border, exporting its economic and political reform programs to the former Soviet republics. To this end, the EU launched its "Eastern Partnership" program with several of these republics. The more countries of the former Soviet Union assimilate EU principles (human rights, transparent elections, equality before the law, absence of caste privileges, etc.), the more secure the eastern border will be and the more the European market can be extended to these countries, gradually incorporating them. In the final, for the EU the aim would be the stability of the Eastern border, the extension to the Eastern European countries of the principles that have given rise to the EU and the expansion to them of its area security and prosperity. 

For the US, the main goal would be to prevent the USSR from reconstructing itself under another name and once again becoming a factor of instability for the democracies. The US has seen how little by little Russian control or influence in former Soviet regions and republics has increased and how these have been taken back by Moscow, one after another. First it was Abkhazia, then Transnistria, then South Ossetia..., in addition to Russian influence in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and, now, Ukraine, after the annexation of Crimea and the control of Donbass. Some analysts see this process as a reconstruction of Moscow's control over the post-Soviet space, as was the case under the USSR. Washington argues that each country has the right to freely choose the international organization and the collective security system to which it wants to belong, so Russia has no right of veto over the free choice of a given Eastern European country to become a member of NATO, or to cease to be one, a decision to be taken by its own citizens, as would happen in the case of Ukraine. In short, each side in this crisis is pursuing a different goal .

3. The conflict in Ukraine erupted unexpectedly. Hundreds of people took to the streets demanding improved living conditions and an end to corruption. How can we explain the fact that the conflict arose so suddenly?

In reality, this is not an isolated conflict, nor did it arise by surprise, but since the dissolution of the USSR, Western chancelleries and embassies had already received up to eight warnings of what was going to happen and did not know how to interpret those warnings.

The first notice came in December 1986, in Kazakhstan, with a series of popular uprisings that already indicated what was to come. There, very serious riots took place when the president of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan, President Kunayev, resigned and was replaced by a Russian, Gennady Kolbin. At that time, young Kazakhs took to the streets to protest against the Moscow-imposed decision to appoint a president who was not ethnically Kazakh and who knew neither the language nor the particularities of the country. To this day it is not known how issue people were killed in the repression by the KGB troops, the army and the police, who were sent urgently from Russia to crush the insurrection.

The second notice consisted of the 1988 war in Nagorno Karabakh (an autonomous mountainous region, populated by Armenians, of Orthodox religion, located in the middle of the Islamic republic of Azerbaijan). When the inhabitants and authorities of Nagorno Karabakh saw that the USSR was disintegrating, they feared that in the chaos of disintegration they would suffer repression and settling of scores from the large Muslim majority around them. Consequently, the parliament of that autonomous region requested annexation to Russia. When this happened, the Azerbaijani authorities sent their troops to prevent secession. A war ensued that has not yet ended.

The third notice, which occurred in 1989, was the "Tbilisi Massacre" (Georgia), when thousands of Georgians took to the streets in favor of Georgia's independence from the USSR. The Soviet army sent special troops to suppress the uprising, as had happened in Kazakhstan. Many civilians died there. That massacre gave rise to the Tbilisi Syndrome: no high-ranking Soviet position wanted to assume, since then, the responsibility of having given the order for the intervention. From that moment on, the army would not intervene again against the people unless it received a written order with the signature the person who decided to intervene.

The fourth notice dates back to 1990 with the civil war in Transnistria, an eastern strip of ethnic Russian majority in the republic of Moldova, which is ethnically Romanian majority. It happened that after the independence of Moldova in 1991, the inhabitants of Transnistria feared that they would be oppressed in the new country of mainly Romanian language and traditions. Therefore, they declared their own independence from Moldova, consequently initiating a conflict that would leave more than 20,000 dead.

In all these cases and in others that would follow, Russia always supported the secessionists, since this was a way of keeping the republics that wanted to secede from the USSR controlled by a minority within them, which prevented their consolidation as sovereign and independent.

The next notice was the failed coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991. Although it failed, that attempt opened the eyes of other republics to the danger of regression and return to the USSR and, from that moment on, the secessionist process accelerated.

The sixth notice consisted of the referendum held in Ukraine in December 1991. Under the question "Do you agreement that Ukraine should secede from the USSR and become an independent state?", 98% of the Ukrainian population voted yes, including Crimea.

Alongside these warnings there had been further indicators, such as the separatist movement in Abkhazia (northwestern region of Georgia), which in 1992 declared its independence from Georgia, which wished to become completely independent from Russia. Russia supported the separatists here as well.

The last notice took place in 2007, in South Ossetia. It followed an attempt by the Georgian government to bring the separatist region of South Ossetia back under its control by using its army. Russia, which had peacekeeping forces stationed in Ossetia from an earlier conflict, intervened in favor of the separatists, forcing Georgia to relinquish control of that region.

4. Although the US is concerned about the Ukrainian conflict, it is not as worried about it as other issues. In fact, the U.S. is not acting and is only verbalizing its concern. Is it possible that it is not offering a clear response because it thinks it is primarily a European problem?

The US is concerned for the simple reason that the solution of other crises occurring in the world, mainly those in Syria, Venezuela and North Korea, depends on trust and good relations between Moscow and Washington. And there will never be if the Ukraine topic is not resolved beforehand. What is poisoning relations is Ukraine. In fact, I doubt very much that without the war in Ukraine there would have been a Russian intervention in the war in Syria as there has been.

When the West tries to isolate Russia by imposing sanctions, Russia has to get out of it somewhere. Therefore, to show that it cannot be isolated and that it is a protagonist on the international scene, Russia intervenes in Syria, in Venezuela or wherever it can stand up to the US. It would be sending a message similar to this: "even if you want to isolate me and reduce me to a second-rate regional power, I can prove to you that without me there is no solution to any world crisis. What is more, if I want to, I can provoke other crises".

5. What do Russian citizens themselves think about the annexation of the Crimean peninsula?

The intervention and subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia, within the Ukrainian conflict, is the point that most poisons relations between Russia and the West, but also has an impact on Russian public opinion.

Because, of course, Russia has a GDP the size of Italy's and is maintaining interventions abroad that are costing it a lot of money. Its hospitals are in a pitiful condition, teaching is going through a great lack of means and a decrease in quality, pensions are very low, the retirement age has been pushed back... Many in Russia are upset that, under these circumstances, huge resources are being devoted to subsidize Crimea. Because Crimea is not self-supporting. Before, when it was at peace and thanks to tourism, yes it could manage to support itself. But now, who goes to Crimea, who invests in Crimea? Everything is subsidized by the Russian government. That would be within the reach of a country with a gigantic GDP, but hardly a country that has a GDP like Italy or Spain and that devotes, directly or indirectly, a third of the GDP to its armed forces and police. Besides having to subsidize Crimea, Russia has to subsidize Abkhazia, Transnistria, Ossetia and Donbass. For this reason, there are those in Russia who are already wondering if the annexation of Crimea was not a mistake, as, for example, one of its most influential newspapers, "Vedomosti".

On the other hand, an important reason why Russian leaders are reluctant to discuss this issue could be Chechnya. According to some international law experts, such as Araceli Mangas Martín, Professor of International Law at the Complutense University of Madrid, all the arguments that Russia uses to justify the secession of Crimea from Ukraine would be valid to justify a future secession of Chechnya from Russia. What would happen, some analysts ask, if in 10 or 20 years a Chechen majority were to form and demand secession from Russia in a referendum, invoking the Crimean precedent? 

The topic of the legitimacy of the annexation of Crimea is a taboo topic in the Russian society, for many reasons. It is not possible to talk about it calmly. In fact, the only deputy of the Duma (Russian Parliament) who voted against the incorporation of Crimea into Russia has had to go into exile because he has been threatened. In TV programs debates on the existence and legitimacy of the annexation of Crimea are not usually allowed and when they are touched upon it has to be always from the official point of view.

6. Do you see it possible that Russia will eventually give up the war in Ukraine? Also, could Crimea become part of Ukrainian territory again?

Russia has made one thing very clear: it will never allow Ukrainian rebels and separatists in the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics to be defeated by the Ukrainian army. It will not allow it. 

The only possibility for Russia to abandon its military intervention in Ukraine would be for the secessionists to win their confrontation with the Ukrainian government and consolidate an independence of the latter under Moscow's undisputed control.

Second, I see the return of Crimea to Ukraine very difficult, practically impossible. Because Russia is turning Crimea into a huge military base that it considers indispensable in the face of an expansive NATO. It is equipping it with the most modern weapon systems: radars, rockets, a modern fleet....

7. Demographically, is the percentage of Russians in Crimea as high as claimed?

According to some analysts, the Kremlin plays with figures. Sometimes it speaks of ethnic Russians, sometimes of Russian speakers. Odessa or Kharkiv, for example, are large Russian-speaking Ukrainian cities, but they are on the side of the Kiev government. What does Russia mean by "Russian"? Russian authorities say, "It is that the majority of the inhabitants of Crimea legitimately voted for secession and incorporation into Russia in referendum by an affirmative majority of around 90%, with Russians also constituting the vast majority of the population on the peninsula." Define that for me, what about the 13% of Tatars, what about the 20% of Ukrainians? And those that Moscow calls Russians in Crimea, what exactly are they: ethnic Russians, Russian speakers, Russian passport holders, Russians by choice, by birth, by marriage? With what electoral documentation and with what voting control was the referendum held? Were the troops at the Russian base in Sevastopol counted as registered voters or were they not counted? How were the votes controlled inside the military barracks? In short, it is like saying "Spaniards" referring to any Latin American country. In Argentina or Cuba there may be 700,000 Spaniards, so do we accept that in a territory of Argentina, Cuba or Venezuela, where the majority are Spaniards, they organize a referendum for secession and their reincorporation to Spain and we arm them clandestinely?

The question that should concern us is: what is the difference between citizenship and nationality? In Western countries citizenship and nationality are the same thing. However, in Russia this is not the case, and here we come to the heart of the problem. In the countries of the former Soviet orbit, nationality means "belonging to an ethnic group ". While citizenship means "submission to the political, legal and administrative regime of a given state, regardless of one's ethnicity".

In Russia they are completely different things. So much so that in Russian and Ukrainian identity cards, until recently, the ethnic group of the holder was listed as "nationality": Jewish, Tatar, Russian.... So, when Russia annexed Crimea, the main reason President Putin gave for doing so was that he had to protect "Russians" in Ukraine, "his" nationals in Ukraine, against the "Fascistboard " in Kiev that threatened them. For a Russian, you can change citizenship; on the other hand, nationality is never lost, and Russia must protect those who hold theirs.

All this explains that before intervening in a former Soviet republic that wants to break away from Moscow's orbit, the first thing Russia does is to hand out Russian passports to citizens of these republics, whom it considers Russian from that moment on, and then argues that it has to protect them.

Of the Ukrainians who lived in Crimea, many have left it. Others, have stayed in Crimea, of course, but without being able to challenge that Crimea belongs to Russia, submitting to the Russian authorities, having, in many cases, to obtain new documentation, different from the one they had before, and giving allegiance and submission to another state than the one in which they lived until recently.

8. Could we say that Russia and the West have different interpretations of the principles that should govern international relations?

That fundamental principle for the Kremlin to militarily defend Russians wherever they are, including the territory of another ex-Soviet republic, clashes with other basic principles for the EU, the US and Western countries: the territorial integrity of the state, the sovereignty of the state and the equality of all before the law.... If you want to protect Russians living in Ukraine by annexing Crimea because it has a Russian majority, you are obviously violating the principle of territorial integrity of the state. However, Russia thinks that she did respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, because territorial integrity has a different meaning for the Russian leadership than ours. For them, territorial integrity refers to the state apparatus, but not to the territory. Russia gives priority to other principles, such as the protection of its nationals.

For all these reasons this conflict is so dangerous, because neither the West nor Russia can renounce principles that they consider basic. That is why, when we talk about EU and US dialogue with Russia to solve this conflict, we are asking for a dialogue between two parties that speak a different language, because Russia attributes to concepts a completely different meaning than the one we attribute to them.

9. Russia's policy of protecting ethnic Russians may be very reminiscent, to a large extent, of Nazi Germany's 1930s policy of trying to unite all ethnic Germans. Do you consider the status to be similar?

Not only to the 1930s, but also to the time of the First World War, which broke out because Serbia wanted to protect Serbs living outside the territory of Serbia, who considered themselves oppressed and mistreated by the authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when the latter annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. One of those who felt oppressed, the student Gavrilo Princip, with logistical help from the Serbian secret police, killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary during his visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This set off a chain reaction and a World War.

In World War II, Germany demanded that all Germans live within the same state. Unfortunately, not all Germans lived in Germany. The Nazis then decided that all Germans of Aryan, superior race, should be in a single State, led by a single Führer. To this end, they annexed Austria. The Western powers were perplexed. It turned out that there were also Germans in Czechoslovakia, who were not well treated by the Czechoslovak authorities, according to the Nazis. The Führer then forces the Czechoslovaks to cede the Sudetenland to him. Germany then annexes other territories and the Western powers give in. Later, Hitler claims the Polish corridor and the German city of Danzig, also a German-populated territory, but located in Poland, and it is there that England and France, which had offered guarantees to Poland, react definitively.

For some Western analysts, the status is very reminiscent of what is happening now in the former USSR. First, Russia annexes a part of another country, then settles in a part of another, with the same justification: that there are Russians in them who need to be protected. In my opinion, the status is not exactly the same, but it has alarming similarities.

10. The lesson of the 1930s is that the policy of appeasement did not prevent war, but merely postponed it and made the fighting worse. What, then, is the advisable attitude to Russian policy?

There are two fundamental tendencies: the first comprises the appeasement tendencies and the second the firmness tendencies. Among the appeasement tendencies we find, in turn, three distinct tendencies:

-A first group of experts draws attention to a fundamental fact: that Russia is willing to go further than the West in the Ukrainian conflict, because for Russia Ukraine is a vital issue, while for the West it is not. A territorial review would have to be carried out. Let's give in and let Russia keep its Russians, and that's the end of the problem. We signed an agreement, and Russia has its zone of influence.

-The second current defends the idea of turning Ukraine into a neutral state so that Russia does not perceive a threat. This would entail a decision to freeze NATO expansion, which would no longer extend to any more countries in Eastern Europe; to grant very broad autonomy to the mainly Russian-populated regions of Eastern Ukraine; and to admit that Crimea is part of Russia in compensation for NATO's extension to the East.

-According to the third current, Russia, in annexing Crimea and intervening in eastern Ukraine, did not behave aggressively. On the contrary, it was acting in self-defense, and no country can be denied self-defense. We say that because if the Maidan revolution had triumphed throughout Ukraine, including Crimea, and a Western-friendly regime had been installed throughout Ukraine, it would have been a matter of very little time before the new Ukrainian government would have applied for NATO membership. That would have meant that NATO's borders would have moved even closer to Russia, endangering the country's security. Therefore, Russia, when acting in Ukraine, does so only in self-defense. This third current advocates the demilitarization of the Donbass, the securing of the borders by a peacekeeping force under UN command, and the admission of Crimea as part of Russia, in compensation for the fact that NATO has incorporated countries that formerly belonged to the USSR.

As mentioned above, there is a second tendency which advocates firmness: "We will not repeat the Munich mistake of giving in, giving in and giving in, because if we continue like this, the next time we will find that Russia tries to annex a Baltic country", where, by the way, in Estonia and Latvia it has very important minorities. The main current of this group thinks that we cannot repeat the mistake of Yalta, of allowing Europe to be divided into zones of influence and above all of imposing neutrality on a country that does not want it. On the other hand, what would be done by allowing Russia to keep all these regions is to deny Ukraine, precisely, its right to legitimate self-defense. 

Another group this tendency argues that the supporters of the appeasement strategy offer no solution to how the security of Eastern European countries would then be guaranteed. Moreover, not extending NATO and patronizing Russia in order to avoid provoking Russia is a false dilemma, because Russia already does everything it can to annoy the West, the whole limit of provocation is already exceeded. If the stability of Europe is to be achieved by turning a blind eye and allowing Russia to control areas that once belonged to the USSR, there is a risk that Russia will continue to occupy territories. How far do Russia's borders have to go to make Russia feel secure?

In addition to the two previous trends, there is a third school of thought that is striking. It says that in the case of Nazi Germany there is a differential fact with respect to the current status : at that time there were no nuclear weapons. At that time, perhaps it was a priority to stop Hitler at the cost of paying a high price, because otherwise the consequences would have been catastrophic. It was a lesser evil versus a greater evil. Now, however, this dilemma does not exist, since the dilemma is between reaching an understanding with Russia or a nuclear war.

The question posed by this third position is: what is our priority, punishing Russia or achieving stability in Europe? If we choose the first option, then the thing to do is to arm Ukraine. However, if our priority is to regain stability in Europe, then we have to start talks with Russia. In reality, in the long run, the West is much stronger than Russia, but the downside in the long run is that you don't know if in that large period of time we will all be dead. If Russia sees that it is weaker in the long run, it will obviously try to take advantage of the status while it is still strong.

11. There may be an interpretation that what happened in Crimea was a self-defense reaction by Russia to prevent its naval base in Sevastopol from becoming a NATO base. Russia would have interpreted that as a threat to its security and therefore would have intervened to protect its security. With this in mind, let us take the Cuban crisis of 1962 as an example. Cuba decided to buy weaponry to place Soviet atomic rockets on Cuban territory. They could do so from the point of view of international law, they were two sovereign countries that could sell arms to each other. The US felt attacked by the possibility of rockets in Cuba and intervened in Cuba. Hasn't the same thing happened with the Crimea and the USSR? In a second scenario, let's imagine that an anti-American government enters Mexico, which feels very insecure towards the US and decides to install nuclear rockets on the Rio Grande border. Would the US allow, for the sake of international law of territorial integrity, rocket batteries aimed at US cities? What do you think of this?

There are similarities in those cases, but they cannot be compared. The differences I see are, in the first place, that the US imposed a blockade on Cuba, but did not invade Cuba, as you say, nor did it annex any region of Cuba. Kennedy screwed up with his Bay of Pigs invasion, withdrew his troops from there and publicly apologized for the initiative. I can't imagine a Russian leader publicly apologizing for the illegal invasion by the USSR or Russia of a sovereign country without declaration of war: Finland in 1939, the Baltics in 1940, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979, Ukraine in 2014....

Secondly, the missiles installed in Cuba were very powerful offensive nuclear weapons, installed clandestinely, while the US does not install comparable offensive nuclear weapons near Russia and has not done so clandestinely. Moscow believes that U.S. anti-missile systems in Poland and Romania can easily become offensive, but such Russian misgivings would be overcome by an effective system of inspections and verification. Moreover, Russian leaders are well aware that such systems do not constitute an effective threat to their huge nuclear arsenal. The test is that they boast about it and consider it invulnerable, according to President Putin himself.

Third, Mexico is political fiction. It is not imaginable that the US would invade Mexico militarily to protect US minorities settled in that country, as has happened with Crimea or the Donbass. On the other hand, I doubt that it would be possible for nuclear weapons to be installed in Mexico with the bilateral and regional agreements that are in force between the US and Mexico and in the framework the free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada. Let us not forget that, although imperfect, both Mexico and the US are democratic regimes. Their leaders are accountable to and elected by their constituents and their people. This is not the case in Cuba or the USSR, communist dictatorships, nor, according to some authors, in today's Russia, a nationalist authoritarian regime. Democracies do not usually wage wars among themselves.

The only US behavior similar to what is happening in Crimea was the invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada. When a Marxist regime came to power in Grenada, the US argued the need to protect the American students there in order to intervene, even though they were not in danger.

Another difference is that Ukraine is part of a process or trend (Kazakhstan, Transnistria...), which seems to have been perfectly planned since 1990, as we have mentioned before. It is not a punctual, surprising and improvised case, as was the US reaction to the installation of missiles in Cuba in 1962.

12. What you have commented above about Russia's aggressive reaction to avoid the long term is very reminiscent of the direct strategy of U.S. containment during the Cold War. The American response was that, precisely, it was necessary to rearm and have a sufficiently intimidating military capability so that the USSR would not dare to act aggressively. Would that be another possible conclusion: Should we rearm?

In fact, we are doing it. For me, Putin's biggest mistake has been to enable the US to achieve in 20 days the consensus for a rearmament and strengthening of NATO that it had not achieved in 20 years. They now have a cohesive and organized NATO, they have gotten commitment to increased military spending from NATO allies who were previously reluctant to do so.

13. Crimea was part of Russia until Khrushchev ceded it to Ukraine in 1954. Besides, the Russian Empire had thousands of deaths to recover that peninsula in the Crimean War. Is the fact that that territory belongs to Ukraine or to Russia something that could be debatable?

First of all, the statement that Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine is, according to documented authors, one of the great falsehoods spread by the Russian intelligence centers, which has been believed by almost everybody in the West. Although it is true that the 1954 CPSU Presidium resolution makes Crimea dependent on Ukraine, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's incorporation into the Russian Empire, this was not the only reason, since Crimea is a very arid area, and the supply of water, labor, infrastructure... is much, much easier from Ukraine than from Russia. For practical purposes, it is much more profitable, as is currently being seen, to hold Crimea from Ukraine than from Russia.

Secondly, the Taganrog region, richer and larger than Crimea, which previously belonged to Ukraine, was allocated to Russia. Therefore, some analysts think that what took place was a kind of territorial compensation, because holding Taganrog from Ukraine is very difficult as well.

Thirdly, the change of administrative borders between different regions of the USSR in Stalin's and Khrushchev's times was a common and frequent occurrence. If we consider unconstitutional or illegal the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine by Khrushchev, we must also consider illegal dozens of analogous territorial modifications that were made at that time in the USSR.

Fourth, Crimea has been part of Russia for 250 years (Cuba was Spanish for about 400 years) and all of western Ukraine was Poland until 1939. Then Poland would have just as much right to claim its part of Ukraine as Russia would have to claim its part. If we are going to justify the annexation of territories on the basis of historical ties without respecting current international treaties, then the entire world map would have to be redrawn and we would provoke an escalation of war. By this rule of three, the Spaniards should claim Cuba tomorrow, because it was a trauma for us to lose it, thousands of Spaniards live there and it was much longer Spanish than Russian Crimea.

Fifth, and most importantly, in the 1997 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, Russia recognized the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea.

We cannot be immersed in a continuous process of historical claims. To avoid this, there are international treaties that set borders and prevent us from returning to the jungle.

14. A few years ago we witnessed how the USA fought for the independence of Kosovo, which it recognized. Therefore, could we say that the case of Kosovo constitutes a precedent that legitimizes Russia to defend the separation of Crimea?

For many analysts, the Kosovo case and the Crimean case have no relation to each other. First, they say, the US did not seek to annex Kosovo, unlike Russia did with Crimea. Secondly, the recognition of Kosovo's independence came after 10 years of ethnic cleansing carried out by Serbian troops in Kosovo against the Albanian population. The topic was taken to the UN and discussed for a long time. Nothing similar happened in Crimea: there was no conflict between Russians and Ukrainians, the topic was not taken to the UN, it was not even taken to the International Court of Justice (Kosovo was). These are completely different things. There had been no serious inter-ethnic incidents in Crimea that would justify annexation by Russia. In Kosovo there were, with thousands of deaths.

This is, according to many authors, another success of Russian propaganda, which has managed to make many people in the West believe that these are similar cases. In addition, it should be seen under what conditions the referendum was held in Crimea: there were no debates on television, there were no different political parties to expose their positions, there were no international observers, there was no reliable census, the voting points were taken by the Russian army... We do not know how is that majority that voted in favor.

How can Putin's enormous power and popularity be explained in a country considered democratic and where regular elections are held?

One issue worth commenting on is the failure of democratic reforms in Russia. When communism disintegrates in the USSR and Russia opts for market Economics , free trade and liberal democracy, it expects to receive a civilized model of all that. What it receives, on more than one occasion, are real Western gangsters doing business, appropriating Russia's economic and cultural resources, and Russia's brains... The version of market Economics that Russia receives after the implementation of liberal democracy in the country is horrifying and, from that moment on, the words "democracy" and "reforms" are totally discredited in Russia. They have a totally harmful and fatal idea of reforms and democracy. That is precisely what catapulted leaders like Vladimir Putin to power.

One thing we did not understand in the West is that, for a Russian, stability is much more important than freedom. Above all we did not understand one very important thing, which was the astonishing ease of the transition from communism to nationalism. It was shockingly naïve of Western diplomats to think that post-communist leaders were going to build democracy on the ruins of the USSR and against their own interests.

The transition from communism to nationalism is actually very easy, because its basic elements are the same: primacy of the leader over institutions, of dogma over principles, of loyalty over merit, of slogans over reasoning, of propaganda over information, of virtual history over real history, and so on.

16. The population of the Baltic countries has a significant Russian minority. In those countries the status has been stabilized also because there has been a NATO deployment. Could Ukraine join NATO and that would stabilize the status or would Russia never allow Ukraine to join NATO?

There was a time when Russia was proposed to join NATO. But Russia did not want to be just another NATO member, it did not want to be subject to the US, it wants to have a leading role. For its part, Ukraine is not the same as the Baltic countries. I believe that Ukraine cannot, for the time being, join NATO. However, there are already partnership programs between NATO and the Ukrainian government. For me, this is a consequence of President Putin's actions, because what is the point of winning Crimea if he loses Ukraine, where, moreover, he has given rise to anti-Russian sentiment? With that policy, Russia has managed to make NATO wake up and become stronger (which the US had never achieved), and to make the majority of Ukraine have a pro-Western sentiment. Quite a balance.

In my opinion, Russia will do everything possible to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. However, if Ukraine were admitted to NATO, Russia would respond asymmetrically. In my opinion, the world would be on the brink of nuclear war.

17. Do you think that the Crimea affair can have a wider impact, set a precedent?

In the opinion of many analysts, including Russians, what Putin has done there is very dangerous. Because the arguments he gives to justify the secession of Crimea from Ukraine, would be valid, according to those experts, to justify the secession of other regions of Russia. Not now, but in the future. Russia has about 120 different ethnic groups, let's imagine that some of them decide to apply the arguments used in the case of Crimea to justify their own secession.

There is also another issue to take into account, and that is that Russia has presented itself as the redeemer of humanity throughout history (with the fall of Constantinople, setting itself up as the third Rome and redeemer of what was left of civilization, and with the expansion of communism after the Revolution of 1917, with the redemption of the oppressed), and now Russia is presenting itself again for the third time as the redeemer of humanity. For Russia, the moral standards that now in the West are already part of the basic principles of our civilization are inadmissible. She thinks that our society is dissolving and is totally corrupted. For example, in Russia gender ideology will never be allowed and they consider it as a plague that is dissolving the society of the West. This trend that goes by the name of "Russian messianism," which takes different forms throughout history, is a constant to reckon with. Russia thinks that it is fighting not only for Ukraine and Crimea, but for the whole civilization.

[Francisco Pascual de la Parte, The returning empire. The Ukrainian War 2014-2017: Origin, development, international environment and consequences. Editions of the University of Oviedo. Oviedo, 2017. 470 pages]

review / Vitaliy Stepanyuk[English version].

In this research on the Ukrainian war and the Russian intervention in the confrontation, the author analyzes the conflict focusing on its precedents and the international context in which it develops. For that purpose, he also analyzes with special emphasis Russia's relations with other states, particularly since the fall of the USSR. Above all, this study covers Russia's interaction with the United States, the European Union, the neighboring countries that emerged from the disintegration of the USSR (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania...), the Caucasus, the Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan...), China and Russia's involvement in the Middle East conflict. All these relations have, in some way, repercussions on the Ukrainian conflict or are a consequence of it.

The book is structured, as the author himself explains in its first pages, in such a way as to allow different ways of reading it. For those who wish to have a general knowledge of the Ukrainian question, they can read only the beginning of the book, which gives a brief description of the conflict from its two national perspectives. Those who also want to understand the historical background that led to the confrontation can also read the introduction. The second chapter explains the origin of Russian suspicion towards liberal ideas and the Western inability to understand Russian concerns and social changes. Those who wish to assimilate the conflict in all its details and understand its political, strategic, legal, economic, military and cultural consequences should read the rest of the book. Finally, those who just want to understand the possible solutions to the dispute can skip directly to the last two chapters. In the last pages, readers can also find an extensive bibliography used to write this Issue and some appendices with documents, texts and maps relevant to the study of the conflict.

The Ukraine problem began in late 2013 with the protests in Kiev's Maidan place . Almost six years later, the conflict seems to have lost international interest, but the truth is that the war continues and its end is not yet in sight. When it started, it was a shock no one expected. Hundreds of people took to the streets demanding better living conditions and an end to corruption. The international media made extensive coverage of what was happening, and everyone was aware of the news about Ukraine. Initially held peacefully, the protests turned violent due to repression by government forces. The president fled the country and a new, pro-European oriented government was established and accepted by the majority of citizens. However, this achievement was met by Russian intervention in Ukrainian territory, which resulted in the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula, in an action that Russia justified on the grounds that they were only protecting the Russian population living there. In addition, an armed conflict began in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian troops and a Russian-backed separatist movement.

This is just a brief summary how the conflict originated, but things are certainly more complex. According to the book, the Ukrainian war is not an isolated conflict that happened unexpectedly. In fact, the author argues that Russia's reaction was quite presumable in those years, due to the internal and external conditions in the country, generated by Putin's attitude and by the Russian mentality. The author lists warnings of what could happen in Ukraine and nobody noticed: civil protests in Kazakhstan in 1986, the Nagorno Karabakh War (a region between Armenia and Azerbaijan) started in 1988, the Transnistrian war (in Moldova) started in 1990, separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia (two regions of Georgia).... Russia usually supported and helped the separatist movements, claiming in some cases that it had to protect the Russian minorities living in those places. This gave a fairly clear idea of Russia's position towards its neighbors and reflected that, despite having initially accepted the independence of these former Soviet republics after the collapse of the USSR, Russia was not interested in losing its influence in these regions.

Russian instincts

An interesting idea sample in the book is the fact that, although the USSR collapsed and Soviet institutions disappeared, the yearning for a strong empire remained, as well as distrust and rivalry with Western powers. These issues shape Russia's domestic and foreign policy, especially defining the Kremlin's relations with the other powers. The essence of the USSR persisted under another banner, because the Soviet elites remained undisturbed. One might think that the survival of these Soviet inertias is due to the ineffective reform process sustained by the Western liberal powers in the USSR after its collapse. But it should be noted that the sudden incursion of Western customs and ideas into a Russian society unprepared to assimilate them, without a strategy aimed at facilitating such change, had a negative impact on the Russian people. By the end of the 1990s, most Russians thought that the introduction of so-called "democratic reforms" and the free market, with its unexpected results of massive corruption and social deterioration, had been a big mistake.

In that sense, Putin's arrival meant the establishment of order in a chaotic society, although it meant the end of democratic reforms. Moreover, the people of Russia saw in Putin a leader capable of standing up to the Western powers (unlike Yeltsin, the previous Russian president, who had had a weak position towards them) and bringing Russia to the place it should occupy: Russia as a great empire.

One of the main consequences of the Ukrainian conflict is that the context of relations between Russia and the Western powers has frozen dramatically. Although their relations were bad after the collapse of the USSR, those relations deteriorated much further due to the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin adopted suspicion, especially of the West, as a basic principle. At the same time, Russia fostered cooperation with China, Egypt, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, India, Brazil and South Africa as a means of confronting NATO, the EU and the United States. On the one hand, President Putin wanted to reduce the weight of Western powers in the international economic sphere; on the other hand, Russia also began to develop stronger relations with alternative countries in order to confront the economic sanctions imposed by the European Union. Due to these two reasons, Russia created the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), formed in May 2014, with the goal of building economic integration on the basis of a customs union. Today, the EAEU is composed of five members: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

In addition, Russia has strongly denounced NATO's expansion into Eastern European countries. The Kremlin has used this topic as an excuse to strengthen its army and establish new alliances. Together with some allies, Russia has organized massive military trainings near the borders of Poland and the Balkan countries. It is also working to create disputes among NATO members and weaken the organization.

In particular, the Ukrainian conflict has also shown the differences between Russian determination and Western indecisiveness, meaning that Russia has been able to carry out violent and illegal measures without being met with solid and concrete solutions from the West. Arguably, Russia uses, above all, hard power, taking advantage of economic (the sale of oil and gas, for example) and military means to dictate the actions of another nation through coercion. Its use of soft power occupies, in some ways, a subordinate place.

According to some analysts, Russia's hybrid war against the West includes not only troops, weapons and computers (hackers), but also the creation of "frozen conflicts" (e.g., the Syrian war) that has established Russia as an indispensable party in conflict resolution, and the use of propaganda, the media and its intelligence services. In addition, the Kremlin was also involved in the financing of pro-Russian political parties in other countries.

Russian activity is incomprehensible if we do not take into consideration the strong and powerful propaganda (even more powerful than the propaganda system of the USSR) used by the Russian authorities to justify the behavior of the Government towards its own citizens and towards the international community. One of the most commonly used arguments is to blame the United States for all the conflicts that are occurring in the world and to justify Russia's actions as a reaction to an aggressive American position. According to the Russian media, the allegedly main US goal is to oppress Russia and foment global disorder. In that sense, the general Russian tendency is to replace liberal democracy with the national idea, with great patriotic exaltations to create a sense of unity, against a definite adversary, the states with liberal democracies and the International Organizations.

Another interesting topic is the author's explanation of how different Russia's view of the world, security, relations between nations or the rule of law is compared to Western conceptions. While the West focuses on defense and enforcement of international law, Russia claims that each country is manager of its own security and takes all necessary measures in this regard (even if it contradicts international law or any international treaty or agreement ). Definitely, what we see today is a New Cold War consisting of a bloc of liberal-democratic states, tending towards the achievement of extensive globalized trade and finance, against another bloc of major totalitarian and capitalist-authoritarian regimes, with a clear tendency towards militarization.

Successes and outlook

The book offers a deep and broad view of what Russian foreign policy is today. It highlights the idea that the Ukrainian conflict is not an isolated dispute, but a conflict that is embedded in a much more complex network of circumstances. He makes it clear that international relations do not function as a structured and patterned mechanism, but as a field where countries have different views on how the world is governed and what its rules should be. We could say that there is a struggle between a liberal vision supported by the West, which emphasizes international cooperation and the rejection of power as the only way to act in the international sphere, and a realist vision, defended by Russia, which explains foreign affairs in terms of power, state centralism and anarchy.

One of the book's strengths is that it sample the different positions of very different analysts, with criticisms of both Russian and Western activities. This allows the reader to examine the conflict from different perspectives and to acquire a comprehensive and critical view of the topic. In addition, the financial aid text financial aid to learn and understand the real state of affairs in other countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus, regions little known in Western society.

This is an excellent research work , which allows to examine the complicated reality surrounding the war in Ukraine and to deepen the study of the relations between nations.

A country with many conditions to have a great weight in Europe, but weighed down by Russia's proximity to it

If the border between the West and the area of Russian domination divided Germany during the Cold War, today that border runs through Ukraine. The open conflict with Russia hampers the objective conditions for Ukraine's great development . The country is paying a high price for the desire to preserve its independence.

▲Pro-European protesters in the central place in Kiev, during the riots in late 2013 [Evgeny Feldman].

article / Alona Sainetska [English version].

Ukraine, a sovereign and independent state (since 1991), located in Eastern Europe, with the second largest area (after Russia) of the European countries (576,550 km² without the Crimean peninsula) and with a long history of struggle to preserve its identity, is today the center of tensions between Russia and the West. In 2014 Moscow wanted to compensate for the fall of the pro-Russian government in Kiev by annexing the Crimean peninsula. It was then that Ukraine aroused global interest. The Ukrainians finally achieved a prominence commensurate with the size of their country, although they would undoubtedly have wanted to do so with a different headline subject .

1. WHAT DRIVES FORWARD

Considering its geographical position and its strategic, economic and military weight, it is difficult to justify that before the outbreak of the conflict Ukraine was not for many more a fuzzy place on the map. The country is surrounded by Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, and has direct access to the Black Sea. This central location makes it very clear that Ukraine should play an important role in the context of international relations.

Agriculture

Ukraine's rich and fertile soil is known as black soil or "Chornozem". The agricultural area used covers 70% of the arable land, or about 42 million hectares, and is capable of feeding 500 million people. The country, with its 46 million inhabitants, therefore has considerable potential for production, processing, consumption and export of agricultural and organic products. It is already one of the leading countries in the agricultural sector and can be considered a "green vein" in the heart of Europe.

It is the leading producer and exporter of sunflower oil, 30% of whose exports go to India and 16% to China. Ukraine also produces large quantities of wheat, of which it is the world's sixth largest exporter. It produces wheat and corn flour for food production, which it exports to France, Poland and Belarus, among others. It is also one of the leaders in poultry production, the issue of which grew by more than 55 % between 2000 and 2011; its exports go mainly to Iraq and the EU and to seventy other countries.

Industry and logistics infrastructure

Ukraine also has an aircraft industry, although lack of investment is holding back its large-scale development . However, examples such as Antonov's Mriya-225, the world's largest cargo aircraft built during the Soviet era and capable of carrying up to 250 tons, speak of its potential while awaiting investment.

On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that Ukraine is ideally suited to be a hub for international trade, mainly between the European Union, the Middle East and Asia. Five out of ten European transport corridors cross the Ukrainian territory; Ukraine has the most extensive railway networks in Europe that handle a substantial part of passenger and freight traffic; moreover, its road network covers the entire territory of the country and enables deliveries to any point of destination. Last but not least, there is the natural gas transmission system, led by the Ukrtransgasbusiness , dedicated to the transmission and storage of natural gas in Ukraine. In 2013 it transported 132 billion cubic meters (bcm), including 86 bcm for the EU and Moldova. Ukrtransgas owns Europe's largest subway gas storage network with a total capacity of 31 bcm and consists of 14 subsidiary units operating in Ukraine.

2. WHAT HOLDS BACK DEVELOPMENT

However, the country continues to be underestimated by other players on the international chessboard and this exposes it to Russian ambitions. These are manifested in numerous obstacles that make it difficult for Ukraine to gain weight in the aforementioned sectors of trade, industry, agriculture and transport. There are also other factors that hinder the country's development .

Interest from Russia

Russia's interest in its neighbor to the west is mainly due to strategic reasons, since Ukraine is a fundamental piece for any expansion of the former Russian imperial power. Therefore, Russia seeks to strengthen its influence in Ukraine through economic expansion, control over the maritime border, installation of Russian military instructions and Russian occupation troops in the territory, expansion of interference in Ukraine's information space, influence of the Russian church, etc. Another of the measures attributed to Moscow is the placement of people close to it in positions of power in Ukraine: the Kremlin wanted to take advantage of the presidency of V. Yanukovych, a pro-Russian politician.

Internal instability

Today the future of Ukraine is as uncertain as ever. Economic and political reforms have failed to overcome the country's serious structural problems, the fight against corruption is weak, and the insignificant international support further diminishes the already leave expectation that Ukraine can overcome the crisis in a short time. Given the absence of other means to put pressure on Russia than sanctions, and in view of the fact that those that have been applied have hardly changed the Kremlin's attitude, it is safe to say that normalization of the status is far away on the horizon.

All this is reflected in the growing popular discontent. 90% of Ukrainians disapprove of the current government's management , express the desire for new elections and show their refusal to allow the regions closest to Russia to participate in the country's political life. Desperation means that the only institutions the Ukrainian people trust are the army, the church and volunteers.

The "frozen" conflict

On the other hand, the "frozen conflict" in the east of the country continues to undermine the state budget . Defense and security spending accounted for 5% of GDP last year, a high figure that includes the government's efforts to create a new army. According to President Petro Poroshenko, this was one of the many reasons for the failure to raise citizens' living standards. Overall, the prospects for a Ukrainian victory in a war to regain full sovereignty over its eastern lands appear dim, given Russia's support for the rebels and Ukraine's fear of an internal counter-reaction. A vicious circle is thus generated, so that as long as there is no successful end to the war, economic and political tension on the Kiev government will increase and could lead to a new Maidan, the popular revolt that collapsed the government in 2014.

The geopolitical standoff between Russia and the West in Ukraine has been detrimental to all parties involved, but especially to the Ukrainian state. Declining cross-border trade, weakening currencies and stock markets, and increased security risks have affected the entire region. Poverty is growing at the same pace as the standard of living of citizens is declining and market prices are rising. As a result, Ukrainians are unable to take advantage of the opportunities granted to them, as is the clear example of the visa exemption between Ukraine and the European Union (approved in May 2017), which many have not been able to use as they have been unable to finance their travel.

3. THE NECESSARY BALANCE

Ukraine's geopolitical priority is to gain independence from Russia, which means breaking economic ties with it. This is an unbalanced and costly battle for the Ukrainians, who face the destruction of their own Economics, the defeat of the elites and the impoverishment of the population.

This strategy of Ukrainian state development is increasingly based on the concepts of radical nationalism. But the report historical antecedents, such as the Holodomor (the great famine of the 1930s), warns of the enormous power of the Russian "hegemon" and suggests the need to serve the national interest through a sort of balance between ultimate goals and medium-term diplomacy.

Moscow continues militarization of the peninsula to prevent other forces from entering the region

Since the turn of the century, Russia had been losing economic, political and military influence in several Black Sea littoral countries; the seizure of Crimea attempted to correct the status. The Kremlin has just deployed a new missile group on the peninsula, in the framework of a long-term rearmament program that seeks to ensure that operationally the Black Sea is a Russian 'lake'.

▲Putin in Sevastopol during the 2014 celebration of the victory in World War II [Kremlin].

article / Vitaliy Stepanyuk

"The bear will not ask anyone's permission." This was the allegory used by Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in October 2014, to reflect that Russia will not seek anyone's permission when pursuing its national interests and those of its people.

These words were pronounced a few months after the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula. The process of change of government had been initiated and troops had been mobilized to the newly incorporated territory, making any subject Ukrainian intervention to regain their land impossible. Approximately four years later, the militarization of the peninsula continues its course by the Russian Federation.

Thus, the deployment of a new defense system in Crimea has just become known, an action justified by Moscow as a measure to protect the airspace over the Russian-Ukrainian border, and also to deal with continued threatening activity on the border, arising mainly from the presence of NATO.

Since the occupation of Crimea, the Kremlin has initiated a long-term rearmament program to achieve a zone (A2/AD) that would prevent other forces from accessing the region. This zone would limit the freedom of both air and ground maneuver for potential invaders. Together with other missile systems in Armenia, Krasnodar and elsewhere, this establishes a truly comprehensive anti-access zone. The establishment of advanced defense systems, the update of radars, the modernization of the Black Sea Fleet and the deployment of fighter aircraft are some of the initiatives undertaken to create such a blockade zone against any outside advance. In the coming years, six new attack submarines and six new surface ships are planned to be added to that Fleet, which could operate beyond the Black Sea, even supporting military operations in Syria.

Moving away from the old satellites

The increase in NATO troops and their presence in countries bordering Russia is seen by Russia as a threat to its security. Countries such as Poland, where NATO mobilized in January 2017 about 3.500 soldiers, and others such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary see the deployment necessary in view of the status occurred in Ukraine and Russian military exercises near their borders: a clear example is Zapad 2017, a set of strategic and military exercises carried out jointly by Russian and Belarusian troops, in Belarus, in the Kaliningrad Oblast and along the entire northern strip bordering NATO countries.

Looking back over the recent history of the last 20 years, we can see how Russia has been losing economic, political and military influence over the territories bordering the Black Sea since the beginning of the century. Thus, in Georgia (2004) and Ukraine (2005), more pro-Russian presidents were replaced by more pro-Western ones. In addition, Bulgaria and Romania had become members of NATO, while Georgia and Ukraine were working on it.

Operations in the Black Sea area

Threatened by this status, Russia decided to do everything possible to prevent Georgia and Ukraine from becoming NATO members, while at the same time developing strategies to remove the remaining states from NATO's influence.

With the invasion of Georgia in 2008, the Kremlin showed its determination to contain NATO, maintaining to this day a military B in various regions of that country. The same happened in Ukraine after the flight of former President Viktor Yanukovych, when Russia invaded Crimea in March 2014. In this way, it secured control over the naval base of its Black Sea Fleet located in Sevastopol (Crimea). It also militarily supports pro-Russian separatists in the war in Eastern Ukraine, destabilizing the country.

In other countries bordering the Black Sea, Russia has acted differently. In the case of Bulgaria and Romania, the only countries bordering the Black Sea that are members of the European Union, Russian influence prevails in supporting pro-Russian political parties and establishing strong business ties subject However, Romania is another of the regions that constitute a challenge to Russian foreign policy, due to its impetus in defending NATO's presence in the Black Sea.

In the case of Turkey, which unlike several of the countries mentioned above was not part of the USSR or the Soviet bloc, the Kremlin has supported the authoritarianism carried out by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seeking mainly two basic objectives: to disassociate Turkey from NATO, to which it has belonged almost since its inception (1952), and to ensure its friendship with the country that exercises control over the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits, which allow access to the Mediterranean Sea. If Turkey were to close the straits, the Russian fleet would be isolated and unable to exert its influence beyond the Black Sea. This could happen if Turkey and Russia were to find themselves at odds with each other in a conflict. In such a case, as the second strongest military power in the region, Turkey could be a clear threat to isolated Russian troops. On the other hand, the relationship with Turkey presents numerous challenges for Moscow: one example is the disagreement over the Syrian conflict, where Turkey opposes the Assad regime, while Russia supports it. 

Importance of the Black Sea

In the final, Russia seeks to consolidate its influence and dominance over the Black Sea. This is mainly due to some essential characteristics: firstly, this sea is an important strategic point, as it would allow access to the various adjoining territories; secondly, control over ports and trade routes would give the power to obstruct trade and energy supplies (it is a territory crossed by a multitude of energy transport pipelines); finally, Russia could greatly influence regions that share a common history with Russia, infringing on its relationship with NATO.

Immediate challenge

In conclusion, it is interesting to understand that the main challenge facing Russia is to maintain the status quo, according to Yuval Weber, a professor at Harvard University. To do so, Russia has to be able to maintain the separatist group in the Ukrainian war, until the Kiev government falls and can then engage in talks with a possible puppet government that accepts a solution on Russian terms. However, maintaining such a state of affairs implies having to deal simultaneously with international intervention and Russia's own weak internal economic status , where there is growing social dissatisfaction regarding wages, cutbacks in services, poverty in some regions, among other problems.

Both Russia's internal and external status , as well as that of its territories of influence, are contingent on the results of the upcoming Russian presidential elections, which will be held on March 18, 2018. The World Cup is not the only thing at stake.