{"id":182471,"date":"2021-04-12T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=182471"},"modified":"2021-04-07T05:53:47","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T04:53:47","slug":"why-ukraines-borders-are-back-at-the-center-of-geopolitics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/04\/why-ukraines-borders-are-back-at-the-center-of-geopolitics\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Ukraine\u2019s Borders Are Back at the Center of Geopolitics"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Apr 2021 – <\/em>On March 11, Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote<\/a> on Twitter that his government has \u201capproved the Strategy for Deoccupation & Reintegration of Crimea.\u201d What he referred to is a new strategy driven by Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelensky to retake Crimea\u2014including the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Ukraine\u2019s National Security and Defense Council passed Decree no. 117\/2021 on March 24 that laid out the government\u2019s decision to contest Russia\u2019s control over Crimea. On Twitter, President Zelensky used<\/a> the hashtag #CrimeaIsUkraine to send a clear signal that he is prepared to escalate conflict with Russia over Crimea. The Ukrainian government set up a Crimean Platform Initiative to coordinate strategy alongside the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to pressure Russia over both Crimea and the conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Zelensky, an actor, was thrust into politics when he played the role of Ukraine\u2019s president in a television show called \u201cServant of the People.\u201d Fiction became reality when his television show became a political party, which ran on a decidedly vague platform to bring decency back to politics. He won the presidency in 2019 with 73 percent of the vote. There was a general sense that Zelensky\u2019s blank slate, and advocacy for Russian actors in Ukraine, would translate into a peace process for eastern Ukraine and with Russia. Instead, Zelensky\u2014egged on by his NATO allies\u2014has become far more aggressive against Russia than his predecessor Petro Poroshenko.<\/p>\n

In March 2014, after Russian troops entered Crimea, the population voted<\/a> to join Russia; eight days later, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution<\/a> asking Russian troops to withdraw. The stalemate set up by the vote in Crimea and the UN resolution persists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Port of Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia<\/p><\/div>\n

NATO\u2019s March Eastward<\/strong><\/p>\n

Current tensions should not masquerade as ancient animosities. This is the case with the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. For seven decades, both countries were part of the USSR, and for over a decade after 1991, relations between the two countries remained cordial. On February 9, 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told<\/a> the last leader of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move \u201cone inch to the east\u201d from the Oder-Neisse line that divides Germany from Poland. \u201cNATO expansion is unacceptable,\u201d Gorbachev told<\/a> Baker. Baker agreed: \u201cNot an inch of NATO\u2019s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.\u201d In a letter<\/a> to the German chancellor Helmut Kohl the next day, Baker recounted this conversation, emphasizing the \u201cextension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.\u201d \u201cBy implication,\u201d Baker wrote, \u201cNATO in its current zone might be acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Western powers broke their commitment immediately. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO, while in 2004, the alliance drew in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. A line of states that comprise Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova\u2014all of which border Russia\u2014remain outside NATO. In 2002, the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan opened up a framework for Ukraine\u2019s possible entry into NATO. This process has raised serious questions not only about the eastward expansion of NATO, but also\u2014more significantly\u2014about the deeper cultural relationship that Ukraine has had with Russia to its east and with Europe to its west; in what direction should Ukraine orient itself (a fifth of the Ukrainian population is Russian speaking, with the largest numbers in Ukraine\u2019s urban areas and in the Donbass region)?<\/p>\n

NATO has aggressively courted Ukraine and Belarus, with NATO\u2019s various plans deeply focused on putting pressure on Russia. The most recent \u201cNATO 2030\u201d report<\/a> highlights its strategic focus around Russia, which is seen as \u201cdestabilizing\u201d and \u201cprovocative.\u201d In the interest of putting pressure on Russia at its border with Ukraine, the NATO-Ukraine Commission met throughout 2020 to advance the NATO-Ukraine Distinctive Partnership (set up in 1997). In June 2020, NATO recognized Ukraine as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner, the closest form to full NATO membership. Ukraine\u2019s armed forces, now substantially trained with NATO, joined NATO forces for three major military exercises last year (Saber Junction, Sea Breeze and Combined Resolve).<\/p>\n

At a meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers on March 24, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said<\/a>, \u201cRussia has increased its pattern of repressive behavior at home and aggressive behavior abroad.\u201d To this end, NATO\u2019s approach to Russia will be, Stoltenberg said, \u201cdeterrence and defense,\u201d with an \u201copenness to dialogue.\u201d Dialogue seems to have been downgraded between the Western alliance and Russia, with a green light to Ukraine to make provocative statements and actions.<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s Need for Russian Gas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beneath the tension lies Europe\u2019s appetite for energy. As a result of U.S. actions over the past two decades, Europe lost three major sources of energy: Iran, Libya, and Russia. Because Ukraine has become a hotspot, Russian energy investors\u2014mainly the state energy firm Gazprom\u2014moved to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea to connect Russian oil fields with Germany. The two pipeline projects (Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2) began in 2011-12, before the outbreak of hostilities in eastern Ukraine and before Russia formally took Crimea (both in 2014).<\/p>\n

Germany welcomed the pipelines, since these would resume gas delivery to Europe on a regular basis. U.S. President Joe Biden\u2019s administration has sharpened the attack on Nord Stream 2; Biden\u2019s Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned<\/a> \u201cthat any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks U.S. sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline.\u201d Poland\u2019s anti-monopoly regulator\u2014UOKiK\u2014has fined<\/a> Polish subcontractors to the tune of about $7.6 billion for participation in the project. German Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s close ally Peter Beyer, who is Germany\u2019s coordinator for transatlantic affairs\u2014called<\/a> for a suspension of the pipeline.<\/p>\n

Nord Stream 2\u2019s Andrei Minin said<\/a> that his project\u2019s fleet have been targets of \u201cregular provocations on the part of foreign civilian as well as military vessels.\u201d This could only refer to the military exercises that NATO and its allies\u2014including Ukraine\u2014have conducted in the Baltic Sea; Minin directly pointed to Polish aircraft flying low over the project in Danish waters.<\/p>\n

Nord Stream 2 is 95 percent complete and is projected to be ready to go by September 2021. Failure of the U.S. to properly<\/a> return to the Iran deal and the continued crisis in Libya make Nord Stream 2 fundamental to Europe\u2019s energy planning. But Nord Stream 2 is trapped in the attempt by NATO to isolate Russia.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Minority Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

No country is truly culturally homogenous. Ukraine has substantial populations with cultural roots in neighboring states. This applies mainly to the Russian-speaking population, which has close ties to Russia both culturally and politically. One in five Ukrainians speaks Russian, while about one in 10 Ukrainians identify with a range of cultural worlds that emerge from Belarus to Gagauz (a Turkish community from Budjak).<\/p>\n

NATO\u2019s pressure against Russia exacerbated and joined with extreme Ukrainian nationalists\u2014including fascists such as the Azov Battalion\u2014to drive an anti-Russian cultural and political movement in the country. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who benefited from Western backing, put forward a language law in 2017 that hampers the teaching of the minority languages in the country\u2019s schools. The target for the law was to de-Russianize the population, but it had an impact on the country\u2019s smaller minorities. For that reason, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Romania filed complaints with the Council of Europe.<\/p>\n

Hungary\u2019s Foreign Minister P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 said<\/a> on Facebook in late 2020 that his government would \u201cstand up for Transcarpathian Hungarians in every international forum.\u201d Ukraine, he said<\/a>, \u201cnot a member of NATO, has launched an attack against a minority group originating from a NATO member country.\u201d The contradictions of Ukraine-NATO\u2019s anti-Russian agenda run afoul of other NATO members for reasons that were not calibrated carefully.<\/p>\n

Firing across the Ukraine-Russia border has stepped up, egged on by Biden\u2019s full-throated support of Zelensky\u2019s newly found anti-Russian ambitions. A senior United Nations official at the Department of Political and Peacekeeping Affairs tells me that they want military forces to withdraw from the border. All the main platforms for negotiation\u2014the Normandy Format and the Arria Formula meetings at the UN\u2014are in a stalemate. \u201cWe need cool heads to prevail,\u201d said the UN official. \u201cAnything other than that could lead to a catastrophic war.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Vijay Prashad<\/em> is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books<\/a> and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research<\/a>. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies<\/a>, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including <\/em>The Darker Nations<\/a> and<\/em> The Poorer Nations<\/a>. His latest book is <\/em>Washington Bullets<\/a>, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was produced by Globetrotter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Apr 2021 – On Twitter, President Zelensky used the hashtag #CrimeaIsUkraine to send a clear signal that he is prepared to escalate conflict with Russia over Crimea. He set up a Crimean Platform Initiative to coordinate strategy alongside the USA and NATO to pressure Russia over both Crimea and the conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[867,120,91,278,961,70,92],"class_list":["post-182471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-balkans-eastern-europe","tag-anglo-america","tag-conflict","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-violent-conflict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}