US Southern Command highlights Iranian interest in consolidating Hezbollah's intelligence and funding networks in the region

• Throughout 2019, Rosneft tightened its control over PDVSA, marketing 80% of production, but US sanctions forced it to leave the country.

• The arrival of Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops comes amid a US naval and air deployment in the Caribbean, not far from Venezuelan waters.

• The Iranians, once again beset by Washington's sanctions, return to the country that helped them circumvent the international siege during the era of the Chávez-Ahmadinejab alliance.

​

▲ Nicolás Maduro and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a meeting in Tehran in 2015 [Hossein Zohrevand, Tasnim News Agency].

report SRA 2020 / Emili J. Blasco [PDF version].

financial aid In a short period of time, Venezuela has gone from depending on Chinese loans to relying on the Russian energy sector (as was particularly evident in 2019) and then to asking for the help of Iranian oil technicians (as was seen at the beginning of 2020). If the Chinese public loans were supposed to keep the country running, Rosneft's aid was only intended to save the national oil company, PDVSA, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's financial aid only aims to reactivate some refineries. Whoever assists Venezuela is getting smaller and smaller, and purpose is getting smaller and smaller.

In just ten years, China's big public banks granted 62.2 billion dollars in loans to the Venezuelan government. The last of the 17 loans came in 2016; since then Beijing has ignored the knocks Nicolás Maduro has made on its door. Although since 2006 Chavismo had also received credits from Moscow (some $17 billion for the purchase of arms from Russia itself), Maduro turned to pleading with Vladimir Putin when the Chinese financial aid ended. Unwilling to give any more credit, the Kremlin articulated another way of helping the regime while ensuring immediate benefits. Thus began Rosneft's direct involvement in various aspects of the Venezuelan oil business, beyond the specific exploitation of certain fields.

This mechanism was particularly relevant in 2019, when the progressive US sanctions on Venezuela's oil activity began to have a major effect. To circumvent the sanctions on PDVSA, Rosneft became a marketer of Venezuelan oil, controlling the marketing of most of the total production (between 60 and 80 per cent).

Washington's threat to punish Rosneft also led the company to shift its business to two subsidiaries, Rosneft Trading and TNK Trading International, which in turn left the business when the US pointed the finger at them. Although Rosneft generally serves the Kremlin's geopolitical interests, the fact that it is owned by BP or Qatari funds means that the company does not so easily risk its bottom line.

The departure of Rosneft, which also saw no economic sense in continuing its involvement in reactivating Venezuela's refineries, whose paralysis has plunged the country into a generalised lack of fuel supply to the population, left Maduro with few options. The Russians abandoned the Armuy refinery at the end of January 2020, and the following month Iranians were already trying to get it up and running again. Within weeks, Iran's new involvement in Venezuela became public: Tarek el Assami, the Chavista leader with the strongest connections to Hezbollah and the Shia world, was appointed oil minister in April, and in May five cargo ships brought fuel oil and presumably refining machinery from Iran to Venezuela.

The supply did not solve much (the gasoline was barely enough for a few weeks' consumption) and the Iranian technicians, at least some of them led by the Revolutionary Guard, were unlikely to be able to fix the refining problem. Meanwhile, Tehran was getting substantial shipments of gold in return for its services (nine tonnes, according to the Trump Administration). The Iranian airline Mahan, used by the Revolutionary Guards in their operations, was involved in the transports.

Thus, suffocated by the new outline sanctions imposed by Donald Trump, Iran returned to Venezuela in search of economic oxygen and also of political partnership vis-à-vis Washington, as when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allied with Hugo Chávez to alleviate the restrictions of the first sanctions regime that the Islamic nation suffered.

US naval and air deployment

Iran's "interference" in the Western Hemisphere had already been mentioned, among the list of risks to regional security, in the appearance of the head of the US Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller, on Capitol Hill in Washington (in January he went to the Senate and in March to the House of Representatives, with the same written speech ). Faller referred in particular to Iran's use of Hezbollah, whose presence on the continent has been aided by Chavismo for years. According to the admiral, this Hezbollah-linked activity 'allows Iran to gather intelligence and carry out contingency planning for possible retaliatory attacks against the United States and/or Western interests'.

However, the novelty of Faller's speech lay in two other issues. On the one hand, for the first time the head of the Southern Command placed China's risk ahead of Russia's, in a context of growing rivalry between Washington and Beijing, which is also manifested in the positioning of Chinese investments in strategic infrastructure works in the region.

On the other hand, he announced a forthcoming 'increased US military presence in the hemisphere', something that began to take place at the end of March 2020 when US ships and aircraft were deployed in the Caribbean and the Pacific to reinforce the fight against drug trafficking. In the context of its speech, this increased military activity in the region was understood as a necessary notice towards extra-hemispheric countries.

"Above all, what matters in this fight is persistent presence," he said, "we have to be present on the field to compete, and we have to compete to win. Specifically, he proposed more joint actions and exercises with other countries in the region and the "recurring rotation of small special operations forces teams, soldiers, sailors, pilots, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and staff National Guard to help us strengthen those partnerships".

But the arrival of US ships close to Venezuelan waters, just days after the announcement on 26 March from New York and Miami of the opening of a macro-court case for drug trafficking and other crimes against the main Chavista leaders, including Nicolás Maduro and Diosdado Cabello, gave this military deployment the connotation of a physical encirclement of the Chavista regime.

That deployment also gave some context to two other developments shortly thereafter, offering misleading readings: the failed Operation Gideon on 3 May by a group group of mercenaries who claimed they intended to infiltrate the country for Maduro (the increased transmission capabilities acquired by the US in the area, thanks to its manoeuvres, were not used in principle in this operation), and the arrival of the Iranian ships at the end of the month (the US deployment raised suspicions that Washington could intercept the ships' advance, which did not happen).

[Angela Stent, Putin's World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest. Twelve. New York, 2019. 433 p.]

review / Ángel Martos

Angela Stent, director of Georgetown University's Center for Eurasia, Russia and Eastern Europe programs of study , presents in this book an in-depth analysis of the nature of Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. In order to understand what is happening today, we sample first look at the historical outlines that shaped the massive heartland that Russian statesmen have consolidated over time.

Russia took advantage of the global showcase of the 2018 World Cup to present a renewed image. The operation to sell Russia's national brand had some success, as reflected in surveys: many foreign (especially American) spectators who visited the country for the football tournament came away with an improved image of the Russian people, and vice versa. However, what was presented as an opening to the world has not manifested itself in the Kremlin's domestic or international policy: Putin's grip on the hybrid regime that has ruled Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union has not been loosened in the slightest.

Many experts could not predict the fate of this nation in the 1990s. After the collapse of the communist regime, many thought Russia would begin a long and painful road to democracy. The United States would maintain its unique superpower status and shape a New World Order that would embrace Russia as a minor power, equal to other European states. But these considerations did not take into account the will of the Russian people, who understood Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's management as "historical mistakes" that needed to be corrected. And this perspective can be seen in Vladimir Putin's main speeches: a nostalgic feeling for Russia's imperial past, a refusal to be part of a world ruled by the United States, and the need to bend the sovereignty of the once Soviet republics. The latter is a crucial aspect of Russia's foreign policy that, to varying degrees, it has already applied to Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and others.

What has changed in the Russian soul since the collapse of the Soviet Union? Have relations with Europe suffered ups and downs throughout the history of the Russian Empire? What are these relations like now that Russia is no longer an empire, having lost almost all its power in a matter of years? The author takes us by the hand through these questions. The Russian Federation as we know it today has been ruled by only three autocrats: Boris Yeltsin, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, although one could argue that Medvedev does not even properly count as president, since during his tenure Putin was the intellectual leader behind every step taken in the international arena.

Russia's complicated relations with European countries are notoriously exemplified in the case of Germany, which the book compares to a roller coaster (an expression that is particularly eloquent at Spanish ). Germany is the Federation's door to Europe, a metaphorical door that, throughout contemporary history, has been ajar, wide open or closed, as it is now. After the seizure of Crimea, Merkel's Germany's relations with Moscow have been strictly limited to trade issues. It is worth highlighting the huge differences that can be found between Willy Brandty's Ostpolitik and Angela Merkel's current Frostpolitik. Although Merkel grew up in East Germany, where Putin worked as a KGB agent for five years, and the two can understand each other in both Russian and German, this biographical link has not been reflected in their political relationship.

Germany went from being Russia's biggest European ally (to the extent that Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, after leaving position, was appointed after leaving position chairman of Rosneft's management committee ), to being a threat to Russian interests. After sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014 with the support of the German government, relations between Putin and Merkel are at their worst. However, some might argue that Germany is acting hypocritically given that it has accepted and financed the Nordstream pipeline, which heavily damages Ukraine's Economics .

Besides the EU, the other main opponent for Russian interests is NATO. At every point on the map where the Kremlin wishes to exert pressure, NATO has strengthened its presence. Under US command, the organisation follows the US strategy of trying to keep Russia at bay. And Moscow perceives NATO and the US as the biggest obstacle to regaining its sphere of influence in "near abroad" (Eastern Europe, Central Asia) and the Middle East.

Putin's fixation with the former Soviet republics has by no means faded over time. If anything, it has increased after the successful annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the civil war that flared up in the Donbass. Russia's nostalgia for what was once part of its territory is nothing more than a pretext to try to neutralise any dissident governments in the region and subjugate as much as possible the countries that make up its buffer zone, for security and financial reasons.

The Middle East also plays an important role in Russian international affairs diary . Russia's main goal is to promote stability and combat terrorist threats that may arise in places that are poorly controlled by the region's governments. Putin has been fighting Islamic terrorism since the separatist threat in Chechnya. However, his possible good intentions in the area are often misinterpreted because of his support in every possible way (including aerial bombardment) for some authoritarian regimes, such as Assad's in Syria. In this particular civil war, Russia is repeating the Cold War proxy war game against the US, which for its part has been supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurds. Putin's interest is to keep his ally Assad in power, along with the Islamic Republic of Iran's financial aid .

Angela Stent draws an accurate picture of Russia's recent past and its relationship with the outside world. Without being biased, she succeeds in critically summarising what anyone interested in security should bear in mind when addressing topic Russia's threats and opportunities. For, as Vladimir Putin himself declared in 2018, 'no one has succeeded in stopping Russia'. Not yet.

[Jim Sciutto, The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America. Hasper-Collins. New York, 2019. 308 p.]

review / Álvaro de Lecea

With the end of the Cold War, which pitted the former Soviet Union against the victorious United States of America, the international system shifted from bipolar to a hegemony led by the latter. With the United States in the lead, the West focused on the spread of democracy and commercial globalisation, and if anything the geo-strategic preoccupation of the West was focused on the Al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11, so the focus of attention shifted and today's Russia was pushed into the background. However, Russia continued to slowly reconstitute itself in the shadow of its old enemy, which no longer showed much interest. Russia was joined by China, which began to grow by leaps and bounds. At this point, the United States began to realise that it had two major powers on its heels and that it was engaged in a war it did not even know existed: the Shadow War.

This is the term used by Jim Sciutto, CNN's chief national security correspondent, to describe what he describes in detail throughout his book and what has largely come to be known as hybrid or grey zone warfare. Sciutto prefers to speak of Shadow War, which could be translated as war in the shadows, because this better denotes its character of invisibility under the radar of open or conventional warfare.

This new war was started by Russia and China, not as allies, but as powers with a common enemy: the United States. It is a hybrid war subject and therefore contains both military and non-military methods. On the other hand, it does not envisage a direct military confrontation between the two blocs. In The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America, Sciutto explains seven situations in which the strategies being pursued by China and Russia to defeat the United States in order to become the world's major powers and impose their own international norms can be clearly observed.

First, it is important to note that Russia and China, while pursuing similar strategies, are different types of adversaries: on the one hand, China is a rising power, while Russia is more of a declining power that is trying to return to its former self. Nevertheless, both share a number of similarities. First, both seek to expand their influence in their own regions. Second, both are suffering from a crisis of legitimacy within their borders. Third, both seek to right the wrongs of history and restore what they perceive as their countries' legitimate positions as world leaders. And finally, they possess great national unity, so that the majority of their populations would do whatever is necessary for their nation.

In the shadow war, thanks to the rules established by Russia and China, any major actor can win, regardless of its power or influence over other international actors. Following the theories of International Office, these rules could be considered to follow a very realistic patron saint , since, in a way, anything goes to win. The power of lies and deception is the order of the day, and lines that were thought unthinkable are crossed. Examples of this, as the book explains and elaborates, are the militarisation of the artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea when Xi Jinping himself had promised not to do so, or the hacking of the Democratic Party's computer system in the 2016 US election campaign by Russian hackers, which may have helped Donald Trump emerge victorious.

To all this must be added an essential part of what is happening in this context of non-traditional warfare: the particularly mistaken idea that the United States has about everything that is happening. To begin with, the first mistake the US made, as Sciutto explains, was to neglect Russia as a relevant focus in the international arena. It believed that, having defeated it in the Cold War, the country would no longer re-emerge as a power, and so failed to see the clear clues that it was slowly growing, led by President Vladimir Putin. Similarly, it failed to understand the Chinese government's true intentions in situations such as the South China Sea or the degree program submarines. All of this can be summed up as the US believing that all international actors would play by the rules established by Washington after the Cold War, without imagining that they would create a new scenario. In conclusion, the US did not understand its opponents.

In his latest chapter, Sciutto makes it clear that the US is currently losing the war. Its biggest mistake was not realising status until it was in front of it and it now finds itself playing on a disadvantaged stage. It is true that the US remains the world leader in many respects, but Russia and China are overtaking it in others, following the new rules they themselves have set. However, a change of attitude in US policies could turn the tide. The author proposes a number of solutions that could help the US get back in the lead.

The solutions he proposes focus, in the first place, on the total knowledge of the enemy and its strategy. This has always been his great disadvantage and would be the first step to begin to control status. Similarly, it recommends greater unity within the Allied bloc, as well as an improvement of its own defences. He also recommends a better understanding of the new scenario in which the whole conflict is taking place, and therefore a series of international treaties regulating these new spaces, such as cyberspace, would be of great help financial aid. Further on, he proposes setting clear limits on enemy actions, raising the costs and consequences of such actions. Finally, it encourages the US to exercise clear leadership.

In conclusion, Sciutto's thesis is that the United States finds itself fighting a war whose existence it has only just discovered. It is a subject war that it is not used to and with a set of rules that are alien to what it preaches. While it is still the leader of the current international system, it finds itself losing the game because China and Russia have been able to discover its rival's weaknesses and use them to its advantage. America's biggest mistake was to ignore all the signs of this shadow war and do nothing about it. New scenarios have been introduced and the rules of the game have been changed, so the US, if it wants to turn status around and once again emerge as the victor, the author argues, will have to unite more than ever internally as a nation and strengthen its alliances, and know its enemies and their intentions better than ever before.

In terms of a evaluation of the book, it can be said that it succeeds in concisely and clearly conveying the most relevant points of this new contest. It manages to make clear the strengths and weaknesses of each actor and to take stock of the current status . However, the author does not manage to be too goal judgemental. While admitting the failings of the US, he gives a negative picture of its rivals, taking for granted who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Objectivity is lacking in some cases, as the good guys are not always so good and the bad guys are not always so bad. That said, Sciutto provides a great analysis of the current international status in which the world's major powers find themselves.

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

▲ Francisco Pascual de la Parte, during the presentation from his book [Manuel Castells]

INTERVIEW / Vitaliy Stepanyuk

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

1. From the point of view of the geopolitics of the region, who are the main actors?

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

In a second concentric circle, the actors 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 Ukraine's territorial integrity 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 of Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and anywhere in the world.

Finally, there is the confrontation between Russia and NATO, which Russia blames for the hostile initiative of having spread eastwards, thereby provoking the Russian reaction when, theoretically, after the fall of the USSR, NATO had promised not to carry out its enlargement.

These are all 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 fight?

The answer to this question will depend on the actor we are focusing on. Obviously, the leaders of the rebel republics do not pursue the same thing as the Ukrainian government or the Russian government. In my opinion, the Russian regime seeks to ensure its security by regaining great power status. By controlling the post-Soviet space and promoting the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) including Ukraine, Russia planned to strengthen its international position. But when Ukraine refuses to join the EEU and prefers a association with the EU in Brussels, Russia's plan was badly damaged. In other words, as Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor, said, Russia with Ukraine is an empire, but without Ukraine it is a normal state. But because 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 purpose of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk Republics is not very clear, because it has changed over time. First it was autonomy, then independence, then annexation to Russia, and 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 would have to conclude from this that the end of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics is the same as the end of the Russian leadership. But I'm not so sure, since there were leaders in the governments of those republics who, at first, wanted another one subject of State. That is, not to be part of Ukraine, but neither to be part of Russia, even if they gave primacy to the relationship with it. 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 tsars. 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 either in a Ukraine integrated into the EU, open, therefore, to assimilating gender ideology and other values contrary to the "Russian world", or in a Russia like the current one, which they considered to be governed by disbelieving ex-communists and former heads of the Soviet intelligence services. The first separatist leaders renamed their new state "Novorrossiya", resuming the name of Eastern Ukraine in tsarist times, whose territories had been conquered by Catherine the Great from the Turks and Ukrainian Cossacks in the 18th century.

But that plan didn't seem to suit Russia. At one point, Moscow stopped supporting the "project Novorrossiya" and brought about 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 far-right nationalist current (advocated, among others, by Alexander Dugin) that accused Putin of treason for not having unceremoniously invaded all of Ukraine, and would encourage the emergence within Russia itself of similar initiatives in other territories of the Russian Federation where national-patriotic traditionalist elements had popular support. As a result, Russia appeared to choose to keep those republics inside Ukraine, but controlled by it or, in the extreme case, to proceed with a de facto annexation. Both solutions benefited him, as they prevented Ukraine from joining NATO and from having enough room for manoeuvre as a sovereign state, as it had within it the Trojan horse of those republics, controlled by leaders close to the Kremlin. 

The EU's aim is stability and prosperity on its eastern border, exporting its economic and political reform programmes to the former Soviet republics. To this end, the EU launched its so-called "Eastern Partnership" programme with several of these republics. The more countries of the former Soviet Union assimilate the principles of the EU (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 will be able to extend to these countries, gradually incorporating them. In final, for the EU the aim would be the stability of the eastern border, the extension to the countries of Eastern Europe of the principles which gave rise to the EU and the extension of its power to them. area of security and prosperity. 

For the U.S., the main goal it would be to prevent the USSR from rebuilding itself under another name and from once again being a factor of instability for democracies. The U.S. has seen how little by little Russian control or influence in former Soviet regions and republics has increased and how these have been regained by Moscow, one after the other. First it was Abkhazia, then Transnistria, then South Ossetia..., as well as Russian influence in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and, now, Ukraine, after the annexation of Crimea and control of the 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. In the face of this, Washington maintains 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 does not have the 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 made by its own citizens, as would be the case in Ukraine. In short, each side in this crisis is pursuing a goal different.

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

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

The first notice It took place in December 1986, in Kazakhstan, with a series of popular revolts that already indicated what was going to happen. Serious riots broke out there when the President of the Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic, President Kunayev, resigned and was replaced by a Russian, Gennady Kolbin. At that time, young Kazakhs took to the streets to protest against Moscow's decision to appoint a president who was not ethnically Kazakh and who did not even know the language, or the particularities of the country. To this day, the issue of deaths in the repression of the KGB troops, the army and the police, who were urgently sent from Russia to crush the insurrection.

The second notice It consisted of the 1988 war in Nagorno-Karabakh (an autonomous mountainous region, populated by Armenians, of Orthodox religion, nestled in the middle of the Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan). When the inhabitants and authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh saw the USSR disintegrating, they feared that in the chaos of the disintegration they would suffer repression and settling scores from the vast 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 has 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 were killed there. That massacre gave rise to the Tbilisi Syndrome: no position From then on, the Soviet Union wanted to take responsibility for having given the order for the intervention. From that moment on, the army would not intervene against the people again unless it received a written order to signature of the person who decided the intervention.

The Fourth notice It dates back to 1990 with the civil war in Transnistria, an ethnic Russian-majority eastern fringe of the Romanian-majority republic of Moldova. It so happened that after Moldova's independence in 1991, the inhabitants of Transnistria feared that they would be oppressed in the new country, which was the only way to achieve it. language and mainly Romanian traditions. Therefore, they declared their own independence from Moldova, consequently starting a conflict that would leave more than 20,000 dead.

In all these cases and in others that would come later, 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.

Next notice consisted of the failed coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991. Although it failed, this 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 "Are you agreement for Ukraine to secede from the USSR and become an independent state?", 98% of the Ukrainian population voted yes, including Crimea.

Along with these warnings, there had been other indicators, such as the separatist movement in Abkhazia (a region of northwestern Georgia), which in 1992 declared its independence from Georgia, which wanted to gain complete independence 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 breakaway region of South Ossetia back under its control by using its army. Russia, which had peacekeeping forces stationed in Ossetia since a previous conflict, intervened on behalf of the separatists, forcing Georgia to relinquish control of the region.

4. Although the U.S. is concerned about the Ukrainian conflict, it is not as concerned as other issues. In fact, the U.S. is not acting and is only verbalizing its concern. Is it possible that he is not giving a clear answer because he thinks that it is fundamentally a European problem?

The U.S. is concerned for the simple reason that the solution to other crises 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 problem is not first resolved. topic of Ukraine. What is poisoning relations is Ukraine. In fact, I very much doubt 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 somewhere. Therefore, to show that it cannot be isolated and that it is a protagonist on the international stage, Russia intervenes in Syria, Venezuela or wherever it can stand up to the United States. He 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 show you that without me there is no solution to any world crisis. What's more, if I want to, I'll provoke other crises for you."

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

The intervention and consequent 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 cost it a lot of money. Their hospitals are in a pitiful condition, the teaching It is going through a great lack of resources and a decline in quality, pensions are very low, the retirement age has been delayed... Many in Russia are disgusted that, under these circumstances, enormous resources are devoted to subsidize Crimea. Because Crimea does not stand on its own. Before, when she was at peace and thanks to tourism, she could sustain herself. 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 that of Italy or Spain and that dedicates, directly or indirectly, a third of its GDP to its armed forces and police. In addition to having to subsidize Crimea, Russia has to subsidize Abkhazia, Transnistria, Ossetia and the Donbass. For this reason, there are those in Russia who are already wondering whether the annexation of Crimea was not a mistake, such as, for example, one of its most influential newspapers, "Vedomosti".

On the other hand, a major reason why the Russian leadership does not look favorably on discussing this issue could be Chechnya. According to some international law experts, such as Araceli Mangas Martín, professor of international law at the Complutense University, 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 formed to demand secession from Russia in a referendum invoking the precedent of Crimea? 

The topic of the legitimacy of the annexation of Crimea is a topic taboo in Russian society, for many reasons. You can't talk about it calmly. In fact, the only member 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. Debates about the existence and legitimacy of the annexation of Crimea are usually not allowed on TV programmes, and when they are discussed, it must always be from the official point of view.

6. Do you think it is possible that Russia will end up abandoning 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 Luhansk Republics to be defeated by the Ukrainian army. He's not going to 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 from the Ukrainian government under Moscow's undisputed control.

Second, I see the return of Crimea to Ukraine as very difficult, practically impossible. Because Russia is turning Crimea into a huge military base that it considers essential in the face of an expansive NATO. It is equipping it with the most modern weapons 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 is playing with numbers. Sometimes he speaks of ethnic Russians, sometimes of Russian speakers. Odessa or Kharkiv, for example, are large Ukrainian cities that speak Russian, but are on the side of the Kiev government. What does Russia mean by "Russian"? The Russian authorities say: "The majority of the inhabitants of Crimea legitimately voted for secession and incorporation into Russia in a referendum by an affirmative majority of around 90%, with Russians also constituting the vast majority of the population on the peninsula." Define that to me. What about the 13% of Tatars, what about the 20% of Ukrainians? And what 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 control of the votes was the referendum made? Were troops from the Russian base in Sevastopol counted as registered voters, or were they not counted? How were the votes inside the military barracks controlled? In short, it's like saying "Spaniards" referring to any Ibero-American country. In Argentina or Cuba there may be 700,000 Spaniards. Do we accept then that in a territory of Argentina, Cuba or Venezuela, where the majority are Spanish, they organize a referendum for secession and their reincorporation into 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. However, this is not the case in Russia, and here we go to the heart of the problem. In the countries of the former Soviet orbit, nationality means "belonging to a group ethnic." Citizenship, on the other hand, means "submission to the political, legal and administrative regime of a given State, regardless of the ethnic group to which one belongs".

In Russia it's completely different things. So much so that on the identity cards of Russia and Ukraine, until recently, the "nationality" of the Russian and Ukrainian countries was listed as the name "nationality". group Headline ethnicity: Jewish, Tatar, Russian... That is why, when Russia annexed Crimea, the main reason President Putin gave for doing so was that he had to protect the "Russians" in Ukraine, "his" nationals in Ukraine, from the "board Fascist" in Kiev that threatened them. For a Russian, you can change citizenship; on the other hand, nationality was never lost, and Russia must protect those who held its own.

All this explains why before intervening in an ex-Soviet republic that wants to separate itself from Moscow's orbit, the first thing Russia does is to distribute Russian passports to citizens of those republics whom, from that moment on, it considers Russians, and then argues that it has to protect them.

Of the Ukrainians who lived in Crimea, many have left it. Others have remained in Crimea, of course, but without being able to question that Crimea belongs to Russia, submitting to the Russian authorities, having to, in many cases, obtain new documentation, different from the one they had before, and lending allegiance and submission to another state other 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?

This fundamental principle for the Kremlin of militarily defending 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 it has respected Ukraine's territorial integrity, 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 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-US dialogue with Russia to resolve this conflict, we are asking for a dialogue between two parties who speak a different language, because Russia attributes a completely different meaning to the concepts than we attribute to them.

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

Not only to the 1930s, but also to the time of World War I, which broke out because Serbia wanted to protect Serbs living outside Serbian territory, who considered themselves oppressed and mistreated by the authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when it annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. One of those who felt oppressed, the student Gavrilo Princip, with the logistical help of the Serbian secret police, killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary during his visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That 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 to ensure that all Germans of the superior Aryan race were placed in a single state, led by a single Führer. To do this, they annex Austria. The Western powers are perplexed. It turned out that there were also Germans in Czechoslovakia, who were not treated well by the Czechoslovak authorities, according to the Nazis. The Führer then forces the Czechoslovaks to cede the Sudetenland to him. Then Germany annexes other territories and the Western powers give in. Later, Hitler claimed the Polish corridor and the German city of Danzig, also a territory with a German population, but located in Poland, and it was there that, definitely, England and France, who had offered guarantees to Poland, reacted.

For some Western analysts, the status it 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 must be protected. In my opinion, the status It's 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 it more difficult to fight. So what is the recommended attitude to Russian policy?

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

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

The second school of thought defends the idea of turning Ukraine into a neutral state so that Russia does not perceive a threat. This would imply a decision to freeze NATO expansion, which would no longer extend to any other country in Eastern Europe; the regions of eastern Ukraine populated mostly by Russians should be granted very broad autonomy, and Crimea should be admitted to be part of Russia in compensation for NATO's eastward expansion.

According to the third current, Russia, in annexing Crimea and intervening in eastern Ukraine, did not observe aggressive behavior. On the contrary, it was acting in self-defence, and no country can be denied self-defence. We say that because if the Maidan revolution had triumphed throughout Ukraine, including Crimea, and a Western-leaning 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, in acting in Ukraine, is only doing so in self-defence. This third current advocates the demilitarization of the Donbass, the security of the borders to be guaranteed by a peacekeeping force under the command of the UN, 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 we mentioned earlier, there is a second trend that advocates firmness: "We are not going to repeat the Munich mistake of giving in, giving in and giving in, because if we continue like this, next time we will find that Russia is trying to annex a Baltic country", where, by the way, in Estonia and Latvia it has very important minorities. The main stream of this group he 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 self-defense. 

Other group of this tendency argues that the supporters of the appeasement strategy do not offer any solution as to how the security of the countries of Eastern Europe would then be guaranteed. Moreover, the fact of not extending NATO and of being condescending to Russia to avoid provoking Russia is a false dilemma, because Russia is already doing everything it can to annoy the West, the whole limit of provocation is already exceeded. If you want to achieve stability in Europe by turning a blind eye and allowing Russia to control areas that formerly belonged to the USSR, there is a risk that Russia will continue to occupy territories. How far do Russia's borders have to go for Russia to feel safe?

In addition to the two previous tendencies, there is a third school of thought that is striking. He says that in the case of Nazi Germany there is a differentiating fact with respect to the status Nuclear weapons did not exist at that time. At the time, it might have been a priority to stop Hitler at the cost of paying a heavy price, otherwise the consequences would have been catastrophic. It was a lesser evil in the face of a greater evil. However, now this dilemma does not exist, as now 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, to punish Russia or to achieve stability in Europe? If we choose the first option, then what we should do is arm Ukraine. However, if our priority is to restore stability in Europe, then we need to start talks with Russia. Actually, in the long run, the West is much stronger than Russia, but the drawback it has in the long run is that you don't know if in that long 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's still going strong.

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

There are similarities in those cases, but they can't be compared. The differences that I see are, first of all, that the United States imposed a blockade on Cuba, but it 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 a declaration of war: Finland in 1939, the Baltics in 1940, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979, Ukraine in 2014....

Second, 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 nor has it 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 solved with an effective system of inspections and verification. Moreover, Russia's leadership is well aware that such systems do not constitute any effective threat to its massive nuclear arsenal. The test it is that they boast about it and consider it invulnerable, in the words of President Putin himself.

Thirdly, Mexico is political fiction. It is inconceivable that the U.S. would militarily invade Mexico to protect U.S. 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 United States and Mexico and in the United States. framework of the free trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Let's not forget that, although imperfect, both Mexico and the U.S. are democratic regimes. Their leaders are accountable to their constituents and to their people, and are elected by them. This is not the case of Cuba or the USSR, communist dictatorships, nor, according to some authors, of today's Russia, an authoritarian nationalist regime. Democracies don't usually wage wars with each other.

The only U.S. 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 U.S. argued the need to protect the American students who were there to intervene, even though they were not in danger.

Another difference is that what happened in 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 one-off, surprising and improvised case, as was the reaction of the United States to the installation of missiles in Cuba in 1962.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fifth, and most importantly, in the 1997 Treaty of Amity 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 demands. To prevent this, there are international treaties that set the borders and prevent us from returning to the forest.

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

For many analysts, the case of Kosovo and the case of Crimea have no relation to each other. First, they say, the U.S. was not seeking to annex Kosovo, unlike what 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 it was taken to the UN and discussed for a long time. Nothing of the sort happened in Crimea: there was no conflict between Russians and Ukrainians, no topic to the UN, it wasn't even taken to the International Court of Justice (Kosovo was). They 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 led many people in the West to consider them to be similar cases. In addition, it would be necessary to see under what conditions the referendum was held in Crimea: there were no debates on television, there were no different political parties to present their positions, there were no international observers, there was no reliable census, the polling stations were taken over by the Russian army... We don't know what the majority that voted in favour looks like.

15. How can one explain Putin's enormous power and popularity in a country that is considered democratic and where there are regular elections?

One issue worth commenting on is the failure of democratic reforms in Russia. When communism disintegrated in the USSR and Russia opted for the Economics for free trade and for liberal democracy, expects to receive a model civilized of all that. What he gets, 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 the Economics The market share that Russia receives after the implementation of liberal democracy in the country is horrific and, from that moment on, the words "democracy" and "reforms" are totally discredited in Russia. They have an idea of reform and democracy that is totally harmful and fatal. That was precisely what catapulted leaders like Vladimir Putin to power.

One thing we didn't understand in the West is that, for a Russian, stability is much more important than freedom. Above all, we did not understand a very important thing, which was the astonishing ease of the transition from communism to nationalism. It was astonishing naivety on the part 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, in fact, very easy, because its basic elements are the same: primacy of the leader over institutions, dogma over principles, loyalty over merit, slogans over reasoning, propaganda over information, virtual history over real history, etc.

16. The population of the Baltic countries has a significant Russian minority. In these countries, the status 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 didn't want to be just another member of NATO, it didn't want to be subject to the US, it wanted to play 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 between NATO and the Ukrainian government. For me, it is a consequence of President Putin's actions, because what good is it for him to win Crimea if he loses Ukraine, where, moreover, he has stirred up anti-Russian sentiment? With this policy, Russia has managed to wake up and strengthen NATO (which the US had never achieved before), and to make the majority of Ukraine have a pro-Western feeling. 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 view, the world would be on the brink of nuclear war.

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

In the opinion of many analysts, including Russians, what Putin has done there is a very dangerous thing. Because the arguments he gives to justify the secession of Crimea from Ukraine would be valid, according to these experts, to justify the secession of other regions of Russia. Not now, but in the future. Russia has about 120 different ethnicities, let's imagine that one decides to apply the arguments used in the case of Crimea to justify its 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, establishing itself 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 presents itself again for the third time as the redeemer of humanity. For Russia, the moral standards that are now part of the basic principles of our civilization in the West are inadmissible. She thinks that our society is dissolving and that it is totally corrupt. For example, gender ideology will never be allowed in Russia and is seen as a plague that is dissolving Western society. This trend, which is known as "Russian messianism", which takes different forms throughout history, is a constant to be reckoned with. Russia thinks that it is not only fighting for Ukraine and Crimea, but for the whole of 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 that it allows for 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 final pages, readers can also find an extensive bibliography used to write this volume 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 at the place Maidan in Kiev. 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 of how the conflict originated, but certainly things are 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 fall of the USSR, Russia was not interested in losing its influence in these regions.

Russian instincts

An interesting idea that is 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 the distrust and rivalry with the 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 to build economic integration on the basis of a customs union. Today, the EAEU consists of five members: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

In addition, Russia has been extremely vocal in denouncing 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 goal allegedly main U.S. 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 the International Office does 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 strengths of the book is that sample presents the different positions of many 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 topic. In addition, the 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 work from research, which allows to examine the complicated reality surrounding the war in Ukraine and to deepen the study of relations between nations.

DOC. DE work / A. Palacios, M. Lamela, M. Biera[English version].

SUMMARY

The European Union (EU) has been particularly damaged internally by disinformation campaigns that have challenged its legislation and its very values. The various disinformation operations and the EU institutions' inability to communicate have generated a sense of alarm in Brussels. Barely a year before the European Parliament elections, Europe has concentrated much of its efforts on tackling the disinformation challenge, generating new strategies and work groups such as the Stratcom Task Force or the European Commission's group of experts.

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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 deadline 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 Valdai Discussion Club meeting 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 deadline 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 as 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 B military influence 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 ties at subject business. However, Romania is another region that constitutes 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 dissociate Turkey from NATO, to which it has belonged almost since its beginnings (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

At final, Russia seeks to strengthen 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 conversation with a possible puppet government that will accept 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 domestic economic status , where there is growing social dissatisfaction over 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, to be held on March 18, 2018. The World Cup is not the only thing at stake.

Russia's GLONASS positioning system has placed ground stations in Brazil and Nicaragua; the Brazilian ones are accessible, but the Nicaraguan one is open to conjecture.

At a time when Russia has declared its interest in having military installations in the Caribbean again, the opening of a Russian station in Managua's area has raised some suspicions. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has opened four stations in Brazil, managed with transparency and easy access; in contrast, the one it has built in Nicaragua is shrouded in secrecy. The little that is known about the Nicaraguan station, strangely larger than the others, contrasts with how openly data can be collected about the Brazilian ones.

article / Jakub Hodek [English version].

It is well known that information is power. The more information one has and manages, the more power one enjoys. This approach should be taken when examining the station facilities that support the Russian satellite navigation system and their construction in close proximity to the United States. Of course, we are no longer in the Cold War period, but some traumas of those old days can perhaps help us to better understand the cautious position of the United States and the importance Russia sees in having its facilities in Brazil and especially in Nicaragua.

That historical background of the Cold War is at the origin of the two major navigation systems we use today. The United States launched the Global Positioning System (GPS) project in 1973, and possibly in response, the Soviet Union introduced its own positioning system (GLONASS) three years later. [1] Nearly 45 years have passed, and these two systems are no longer serving as a means for Russians and Americans to try to obtain information about the opposing side, but are collaborating and thus providing a more accurate and faster navigation system for consumers who purchase a smartphone or other electronic device. [2]

However, to achieve global coverage both systems need not only satellites, but also ground stations strategically located around the world. With that purpose, Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has erected stations for the GLONASS system in Russia, Antarctica and South Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere: it already has four stations in Brazil and since April 2017 it has one in Nicaragua, which due to the secrecy surrounding its function has caused distrust and suspicion in the United States [3] (USA, for its part, has GPS ground stations in its territory and in Australia, Argentina, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Ecuador, South Korea, Tahiti, South Africa and New Zealand).

The Russian Global Navigation Satellite System(Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sputnikovaya Sistema or GLONASS) is a positioning system operated by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces. It consists of 28 satellites, allowing real-time positioning and speed data for surface, sea and airborne objects around the world. [ 4] In principle GLONASS does not transmit any identification information staff; in fact, user devices only receive signals from the satellites, without transmitting anything back. However, it was originally developed with military applications in mind and carries encrypted signals that are supposed to provide higher resolutions to authorized military users (same the US GPS). [5]

In Brazil, there are four ground stations used to track signals from the GLONASS constellation. These stations serve as correction points in the western hemisphere and help to significantly improve the accuracy of navigation signals. Russia is in close and transparent partnership with the Brazilian space agency (AEB), promoting the research and development of the South American country's aerospace sector.

In 2013, the first station was installed, located at campus of the University of Brasilia, which was also the first Russian station of that subject abroad. Another station followed at the same location in 2014, and later, in 2016, a third one was placed at the high school Federal Science Education and Technology of Pernambuco, in Recife. The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos built its fourth Brazilian station on the territory of the Federal University of Santa Maria, in Rio Grande do Sul. In addition to fulfilling its main purpose of increasing the accuracy and improving the performance of GLONASS, the facility can be used by Brazilian scientists to carry out other types of scientific research . [6]

The level of transparency that surrounded the construction and then prevailed in the management of the stations in Brazil is definitely not the same applied to the one opened in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. There are several pieces of information that sow doubts regarding the real use of the station. To begin with, there is no information on the cost of the facilities or on the specialization of the staff. The fact that it has been placed a short distance from the U.S. Embassy has given rise to conjecture about its use for eavesdropping and espionage.

In addition, vague answers from representatives of Nicaragua and Roscosmos about the use of the station have failed to convey confidence about project. It is a "strategicproject " for both Nicaragua and Russia, concluded Laureano Ortega, the son of the Nicaraguan president. Both countries claim to have a very fluid and close cooperation in many spheres, such as in projects related to health and development, however none of them have materialized with such speed and dedication. [7]

Given Russia's increased military presence in Nicaragua, empowered by the agreement facilitating the docking of Russian warships in Nicaragua announced by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during his visit to the Central American country in February 2015, and also concretized in the donation of 50 Russian T-72B1 tanks in 2016 and the increasing movement of the Russian military staff , it can be concluded that Russia clearly sees strategic importance in its presence in Nicaragua. [ 8] [ 9] All this is viewed with suspicion from the U.S. The head of the U.S. Southern Command, Kirt Tidd, warned in April that "the Russians are pursuing an unsettling posture" in Nicaragua, which "impacts the stability of the region."

Undoubtedly, when world powers such as Russia or the United States act outside their territory, they are always guided by a combination of motivations. Strategic moves are essential in the game of world politics. For this very reason, the financial aid that a country receives or the partnership that it can establish with a great power is often subject to political conditionality. In this case, it is difficult to know for sure what exactly is the goal of the station in Nicaragua or even those in Brazil. At first glance, the goal seems neutral-offering higher quality of navigation system and providing a different option to GPS-but given the new value Russia is placing on its geopolitical capabilities, there is the possibility of a more strategic use.