Eastern Europe

Demystifying Russia’s Hybrid Warfare in Europe

27 Aug 2019

Russia and the G8: 5 Geopolitical Effects You Need to Know 

1. Russian Concessions to the West The US President Donald Trump expressed his support for reinstating Russia into the G8. The Kremlin would certainly have to make some serious concessions in order to renew its membership in this inter-governmental political forum. French President Emmanuel Macron already said that Russia can't return to the G8 format before the Ukrainian crisis is resolved. In other words, Moscow will, most likely, have to end its support to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic. Such move will be seen as an open betrayal of the pro-Russian forces in the Donbass. However, the Kremlin political technologists will undoubtedly try to portray it as another geopolitical victory. 2. Return of Crimea as a Condition Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the other hand, wrote on Facebook that Russia can return to the G8 if it returns Crimea to Ukraine, ends the conflict in the Donbass and releases 24 Ukrainian sailors who were captured at the end of the last year during the Kerch Strait accident. During the Macron-Putin meeting on Monday, French leader said a resolution of Russia's annexation of Crimea would be the "magic wand" to bring Russia back into the G7. Even though Russia was expelled from the old G8 format after it incorporated Crimea into the Russian Federation in March 2014, at this point it's unlikely that Moscow will be willing to discuss the future of the peninsula. Subscribe to unlock the other 3 Points We wish we didn't have to do this, but only paid subscribers can read the full article, Unlike other publishers, we are not the beneficiaries of State funds and are entirely dependent on our supporters to keep KJ Vids functioning. Please subscribe to read the rest of the article. The First 1,000 subscribers will receive a 50% lifetime discount to our content. - Access over 500 videos explaining global politics - Full access to all articles - Vote on future video topics - Secure Questions for Video Q&As Sign Up - https://www.kjreports.com/product/lifetimediscount/

22 Aug 2019

Russia – Ukraine Ceasefire: 5 Geopolitical Effects You Need to Know

1. “Indefinite” truce announced Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE have announced an “indefinite” ceasefire in the Donbass. Since the beginning of the conflict in 2014 several ceasefires have been announced and none of them was ever respected. Both, Ukrainian armed forces and Russia backed Donetsk People’s (DPR) Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) violated the truce on a daily basis. 2. Shelling goes on It’s extremely unlikely that the brand new ceasefire will be implemented. Since the US never took part in any negotiations over the Donbass conflict in the past five years, chances for a sustainable truce are very slim. After the events in Maidan in Kiev in 2014, Ukraine is firmly under the US geopolitical sphere of influence. Even though the ceasefire won’t come into the effect, any major military offensives are not likely to happen either. Due to fear of sanctions, Russia’s been preventing its proxies from capturing new territories since the Debaltsevo offensive in 2015. Ukraine, on the other hand, won’t dare to start a massive assault until it gets firm guarantees that Moscow won’t intervene. In the meantime, the people of the Donbass will keep living under constant shelling. 3. No special status for the Donbass Ukraine is not ready to recognise the special status of the Donbass under any circumstances, and that’s something that the Kremlin’s proposing. The Ukrainian society would see such move as an open betrayal, and it’s also unlikely that the West would agree with the idea. As long as the war in Donbass goes on, the EU and the US have a strong reason to keep imposing new packages of sanctions on Russia and weaken its economy. Russia is already spending a significant amount of money funding its proxies in the Donbass, and in the long term the price of keeping that territory under the Russian sphere of influence might be too high.

27 Jul 2019