The Netherlands’ outgoing Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, has said that admitting Ukraine to NATO is not feasible while the conflict with Russia is ongoing.
Rutte has been described in the media as a frontrunner to become the next secretary-general of the US-led bloc. The politician made the comments at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday in response to a question about whether EU prime ministers would “personally support” Ukraine’s membership bid at the next NATO summit in Washington in July. “The bad news is – as long as the war is raging, Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO,” Rutte has said. “The good news is that we can learn from the European Union,” he added referring to the EU approach of implementing “intermediate steps” that countries take on “the way to accession” as opposed to NATO’s process that goes “from nothing to full membership.” Rutte admitted that the last time the question of Ukraine’s membership arose, Kiev was left “dissatisfied.” As a result, there is a need to “work carefully” to see “what next step is possible” so as not to “overpromise.” Ukraine applied to integrate with the NATO Membership Action Plan in 2008 and a decade later enshrined in its constitution membership in the US-led bloc as a strategic foreign policy goal. At last year’s NATO summit in Vilnius, the bloc’s leaders said that Ukraine’s “rightful place is in NATO,” but failed to provide clear commitments or describe a timeline. While the question of Ukraine’s membership is likely to be discussed at the next NATO summit in July, some Western politicians have warned against expecting a “big leap forward on that.” Russia views NATO expansion towards its border as a major security threat. President Vladimir Putin has argued that Western powers have used Ukraine to antagonize Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin called the West’s approach to Ukraine a colossal political mistake, pointing to NATO’s 2008 promise to accept the country into the bloc, as well as the Western-supported coup in Kiev in 2014.
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Vladimir Putin reportedly ordered Yevgeny Prigozhin's demise last year — and he's now trying to do the same to his mercenary group.
Since Prigozhin's plane crashed last August, many have pondered the fate of the Wagner paramilitary organization without its leader. In the hours after Wagner's short-lived mutiny last June, the Kremlin began privately reassuring African and Middle Eastern governments that Russia would take full control of Prigozhin's global empire. Prigozhin crossed Africa in a frantic attempt to protect his global business empire, before his untimely demise. Six months after his death, experts say Wagner's days operating anywhere in the world could be numbered. Sergey Sukhankin, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said there is no doubt that the Wagner Group has become "marginalized" and "de facto" subordinated to Russia's defense ministry following Prighozhin's death. "The fighters will do what they are told" by the ministry, he told BI. Wagner is shrinking in Ukraine In the months since Prigozhin's death, intelligence reports have offered clues about the Kremlin's efforts to take over his organization, which had been a major player in the war in Ukraine and also operated elsewhere. Former Wagner fighters have been absorbed into Russia's national guard, also known as Rosgvardia, according to a report by the UK government this month. Three former Wagner assault detachments are being integrated into its first Volunteer Corps formation with the likely goal of deploying them to Ukraine and Africa, the UK said. Another update last week said Wagner's plan to establish a new headquarters near a Russian barracks is likely a sign of its subordination. And Russia's efforts aren't stopping there. Russia is taking over Wagner's mercenaries in Africa The military formation has been actively recruiting former Wagner Group mercenaries and soldiers who fought in Ukraine for combat operations in Africa. In a Telegram post last week, it promised an unspecified "high monetary" allowance, payments in foreign currency, service under "competent commanders" with extensive combat experience, and medical care and social benefits. Fighters joining the new group is likely a sign of diminishing allegiance to Prigozhin's paramilitary organization, according to Raphael Parens, a fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Eurasia Program and an international security researcher specializing in small armed groups. "Wagner fighters likely have little loyalty to the company itself after Prigozhin's demise and would be willing to fight for whichever Kremlin-backed organization that exists in Africa," Parens told BI. "These mercenaries care about the bottom line rather than an ideological alignment with Prigozhin," he said. The Kremlin is likely using the Africa Corps to take over many of the functions of the Wagner Group, Parens added. However, it's unclear how successful Russia's efforts will be: "Prigozhin relied heavily on personal connections and a variety of shell corporations, which may be difficult for a state government to control," he said. Instead of being another attempt by Russia to subordinate Wagner, Sukhankin said its recruitment of Wagner fighters is about "making the best of professional mercenaries familiar with the African environment." Ukraine and Western allies may be trying to stop Russia Alessandro Arduino, the author of "Money for Mayhem: Mercenaries, Private Military Companies, Drones, and the Future of War," said the Wagner Group could either fall under Russia's control or split into smaller, heavily armed groups serving local warlords. "Regardless, in Africa, the perception that Wagner or the new creation Africa Corp is protecting territorial integrity against militant forces is on the rise," he told BI. Last week, in a video obtained by the Kyiv Post, Ukrainian special forces were shown interrogating captured Wagner mercenaries in Sudan. The undated video shows one soldier confessing to being part of a Wagner mercenary outfit sent to Sudan to overthrow the local government, per the outlet. According to Parens, the presence of Ukrainian special forces in Africa highlights that Ukraine is competing with Russia in a new area. "This signals the Ukrainian government's willingness to fight and defeat Russian forces via attrition regardless of their location," he said. Sukhankin suggested that the operation may be part of "some sort of tacit agreement" between Western allies and Ukraine to battle Russian mercenaries in Africa in exchange for certain military backing for Ukraine in its war against Russia. "Ukrainian special services have acquired considerable experience of waging non-linear warfare against the Russian side and especially against the Wagner Group," he said. "This is something the West does not have." In Sukhankin's view, this makes Ukrainians "the best option — both in terms of effectiveness/efficiency and cost-benefit basis — in confronting Russian mercenaries in Africa." The fate of the Wagner Group, it seems, still hangs in the balance. EDITORIAL: Von der Leyen celebrates ‘a great day for Europe’ as farmers protest in Brussels3/2/2024 “Agreement! The European Council delivered on our priorities. Supporting Ukraine…. A good day for Europe,” tweeted unelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, as EU farmers “high-fived” her by throwing eggs, lighting fires and dumping manure in Brussels, where a reported 1,300 tractors had gathered in protest.
Surely it must have been in anticipation of this “great day for Europe” that Brussels rolled out the barbed wire to keep the bloc’s own struggling farmers at bay while its leaders cut yet another check for Ukraine — after threatening the one anticipated holdout with national economic “blackmail,” as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban qualified it. It’s hard to believe that this meeting actually took place in Brussels. These officials are so disconnected from reality that it may as well have been held on a whole other planet. Unlike the Ukrainian products making their way onto Western European dinner plates to stick it to Russian President Vladimir Putin (because turtlenecks and short, cold showers apparently failed to do the job), this crisis is certifiably EU-made. No one knows this better than the farmers, who also realize that it makes more sense to blockade the streets of Brussels than the national highways of their home countries, which they’ve been doing with overwhelming public support – from nine out of every ten citizens in the case of France, according to a recent Odoxa poll. It was the EU with its climate change obsession that imposed a Common Agricultural Policy on farmers across the entire bloc, managed by bureaucrats divorced from the reality on the ground. Pencil pushers use EU Copernicus satellite images to spy and crack down on farmers whose paperwork doesn’t match – even if any discrepancies can be chalked up to uncontrollable but temporary conditions like the weather. It was also the EU that piled on regulations under the pretext of ensuring the quality of farm products, while at the same time flooding the bloc with grain, poultry, and other imports from Ukraine. Does “Chernobyl chicken” mass-produced by workers who are paid a pittance represent a threat to the physical health of citizens and economic health of farmers? If not, then why can’t Brussels take its jackboot off the necks of its own farmers so they can compete on a level playing field? The EU has also suddenly decided to ease up on some pesticide bans, angering greens. Paris is promoting the idea that ideologically-driven bans need to end, which seems like a tacit admission of their uselessness. So what should we be more worried about now – ideologically-driven authoritarianism under the guise of health consciousness, or an actual health threat? And what about that Ukrainian grain that EU officials demanded Russia unblock to feed the poor in developing countries? It turns out that Turkey and Russia were right when they raised the alarm about it just being dumped right next door in Europe, and it sounds like Russian President Vladimir Putin was effectively a bigger defender of EU farmers’ interests than Brussels was. But who’s even surprised anymore by Brussels’ misplaced priorities, given the image that has now emerged of another €50 billion ($54 billion) going out the door to Kiev, in support of a country that’s undercutting the EU’s own farmers without even being in the EU itself? It was also the EU that screwed itself, its entire population, industry, and farmers out of cheap Russian energy, driving inflation that caused consumers to turn to cheaper food products and, in turn, driving industrial distributors to buy more cheaply, favoring Ukrainian imports. French President Emmanuel Macron said that he’d now be merciless with those industrials, as he limbers up to toss them under the tractors instead of taking responsibility for his own inaction or blaming Brussels for a top-down anti-Russia policy that’s doing far more harm than good. The farmers’ problems are existential. And while some French farming union chiefs have called for the suspension of blockades in light of the most recent series of promised reforms announced by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, it’s not clear whether the rank and file will actually listen in the long term. These are people who don’t talk much, but when they do, they’re direct and concrete. As one farmer told me, “Our feet may be in the dirt, but the dirt is clean” – in contrast to some politicians who have different narratives depending on their audience. Even with the suspension of the blockades on Friday, union reps admit that if government action and implementation doesn’t follow shortly, then the blowback from the same farmers risks being “catastrophic.” For many farmers I’ve spoken with, it’s far too little, and way too late. The average French farmer’s income, estimated by government statistics back in 2021 at around €17,700 a year (for people who regularly work 70 hours a week), has since been subjected to even more blows. Yet governments have insisted on milking this particular cow until there’s nothing left. How else to explain the careless decision to raise taxes on farm fuel by 3 cents a liter, every year, and the insistence on maintaining such a policy at a time when the price of energy had skyrocketed as a result of knee-jerk anti-Russian ideological choices imposed by the EU? Until the tractors spilled onto the highways in France, Paris showed no interest in reversing this tax policy, which was implemented to drive the “green transition” away from conventional energy, and against all pragmatic reality. Clearly French officials knew of its devastating impact, as it was one of the very first concessions that Attal tried tossing like a speed bump in front of the advancing tractors on January 26 – and which the farmers rolled right over, demanding more. Then there’s Queen Ursula briefly breaking from her fawning over the EU farmers’ current nemesis, Ukraine, to propose easing their “administrative burden.” Too bad she didn’t do that before letting Ukraine into the market in the first place. Guess she could always just blame Putin for making her do it. The bureaucracy is so overwhelming at this point that her proposal to the farmers is like offering to save people drowning in the ocean by tossing them a bucket. She could have stopped the paperwork pile-on at any time, but didn’t. And how exactly could she know this demagoguery was killing European farming? You’d think that the first clue would have been the fact that EU policies ended up strong-arming Dutch farmers to sell their land to the government because their cattle’s nitrogen emissions exceeded climate policy limits. Macron has now started to lobby the EU to restrict Ukrainian imports. Wow. You’d think these tractors were Decepticon Transformers about to rise up and kick their behinds, the way that all these EU leaders are suddenly springing into action. But the fact that an elected president even has to go cap in hand to plead with unelected Brussels bureaucrats, rather than make sovereign decisions in the best interests of his own country, is pathetic. Like, what if they say no? Then what? Does Macron think that he’s going to single-handedly and permanently derail the new Mercosur free trade deal, ready for signature, and set to flood the EU with even more farm products from Brazil and the rest of South America? If Macron, or any other EU leader had any courage, they would have vetoed the €50 billion for Ukraine and demanded that it be used in consultation with EU farmers to ease their burden and “unscrew” the bloc. That’s a lot of bought time for the EU to figure out how to deconstruct the mess that it has made of its own house through corruption and special interests – all in hope that one day, people doing honest work can also make a commensurately decent living. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has invited former US president and potential Republican nominee in the 2024 election, Donald Trump, to visit Kiev.
In his interview with UK’s Channel 4 News on Friday, Zelensky was asked to comment on Trump’s claim that if he returned to the White House, he would be able to put an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in just 24 hours. “I don't know if his message… will have such [a] positive result,” the Ukrainian leader replied in English. It could be just a “political message” made by a candidate during the “complicated” election period, “but if it's some formula – I have to know it,” he stressed. The reporter then asked the Ukrainian leader if he wanted to invite Trump to arrive in Kiev in person to explain his plan. “Yes, please, Donald Trump, I invite you to Ukraine, to Kiev. So, if you can stop the war during 24 hours I think it will be enough to come, in any day,” Zelenksy said. “Maybe Donald Trump really has some idea, a real idea… he can share it with me, and I think it's OK,” he added. If somebody knows how to stop the conflict with Russia, this information shouldn’t be kept secret from the Ukrainian people, the president insisted. Addressing a crowd of his supporters in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday night, Trump said, “I know [Russian] President Vladimir Putin very well; I know Zelensky well. I’m gonna get them in; we’re gonna get it solved very quickly.” On Thursday, in his interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, the former US president reiterated his other claim that “Putin would’ve never attacked Ukraine” if he was still in office. When asked about ways to end the conflict in Ukraine last week, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., suggested that “the only way” to persuade Zelensky to engage in talks with Russia was to “cut off the money” that’s being provided to Kiev by Washington. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Zelensky tried to brush off concerns that US aid to Ukraine would halt if Trump were back in power. “One man can’t change the whole nation,” he argued. Ukraine will encounter difficulties maintaining the US-made F-16 fighter jets scheduled to arrive in the country later this year, a spokesman for the Air Force has acknowledged.
Speaking on national TV on Saturday, Yury Ignat said he was sure that Kiev would eventually switch from Soviet-era jets to Western warplanes, including F-16s and also the Swedish-made Gripen. Stockholm earlier said deliveries were possible, but that it would first have to be accepted into NATO. However, according to the official, until the Ukrainian military transitions to new aircraft, it will face serious infrastructure challenges as it tries to maintain several types of jet simultaneously – even though infrastructure for NATO aircraft is relatively standardized. “Different countries have one, or at most two types of planes. As of today, we have four types of Soviet-era planes. We want to take on the Western F-16s and more… It will be extremely difficult to maintain and operate different types of aircraft,” Western countries announced the creation of a coalition to help Ukraine procure F-16 fighter jets and train its pilots to fly the advanced warplanes last year, with Kiev officials expecting the first deliveries in 2024. The Netherlands and Denmark have spearheaded the effort, promising to donate up to 61 planes of this type. However, the Danish newspaper Berlingske reported earlier this month that the delivery of F-16s by Copenhagen would be delayed by up to six months. At the time, Ignat cautioned against making a “disaster” out of the report, urging the public to rely on official statements. Russia, which has repeatedly condemned Western arms shipments to Ukraine, has warned that aircraft deliveries will not help Kiev drastically change the situation on the frontline, while vowing to destroy F-16s along with other foreign-supplied equipment. In July, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the upcoming deliveries a “dangerous development,” recalling that some modifications of the F-16 can carry nuclear weapons. The Netherlands should urgently get ready to face a security challenge posed by an “increasingly assertive” Russia, the nation’s Land Forces commander, Lieutenant General Martin Wijnen, said on Thursday. The EU nation should strengthen its military and help society adapt to the potential hardships of war, he added.
The general claimed that Moscow has designs on the Baltic States, three former Soviet republics which have joined NATO and the EU, after it is done with Ukraine. “The Netherlands should not think that [its] safety is guaranteed just because we are 1,500 kilometers away,” Wijnen warned, adding that “Russia is getting stronger.” Wijnen told De Telegraaf newspaper on Thursday that the Netherlands “must work on [its] operational readiness, ensure that we have enough deterrence to deprive any adversary of the courage to [attack] us.” He also claimed that “there is only one language that Russia understands,” and that is the one “of robust Armed Forces.” The general, who has led the Royal Netherlands Army since 2019, also described the Dutch military as “crippled by budget cuts,” according to De Telegraaf. The Netherlands, which abolished conscription back in 1997, is now facing a “glaring personnel shortage,” the paper said. Wijnen spoke about the need to increase the army's size and warned that it could not afford to take any battle casualties. “If we start to suffer losses, who will replenish them?” the general asked. “We used to have options for that, but not anymore,” he added, noting that the Dutch would not get a choice on whether to fight or not in case of an “imposed conflict.” “The Netherlands must learn again that the entire society must be ready when things go wrong,” Wijnen said. While his words do not mean that everyone would have to “wear a helmet tomorrow,” the Dutch people have become “too accustomed to the idea that there is always peace,” the army chief added. The Dutch military is currently running a campaign called “service year,” which encourages young people to enlist in the army voluntarily for 12 months. According to Wijnen, the idea has supposedly been a huge success, though he admitted that only around 600 people joined the program this year, when “that should be between two and three thousand.” Wijnen also urged Dutch society to improve its “resilience,” storing “supplies, food and drinking water” in basements so it could “take the blow” when the time comes. Dutch companies should also be ready to provide for the needs of the military if the need arises, he added. The Netherlands has been one of the most ardent supporters of Kiev in its ongoing conflict with Moscow. The EU state was one of the few countries to pledge the delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced that his government has started preparations for the delivery of the first 18 planes to Kiev. The US, which is by far Ukraine’s biggest single military aid donor, has long been reluctant to supply Ukraine with Western-made fighter jets. Washington only gave permission for Ukrainian pilots to train on F-16 jets and signaled that it was ready to approve a third-party transfer of the aircraft to Kiev this summer, adding that the training should be completed first. Moscow has never mentioned any plans to attack any NATO nations. It has only repeatedly warned that continued military supplies by the US and its allies to Kiev make them de facto parties to the conflict and increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and the US-led military bloc. The Netherlands will supply Ukraine with eighteen F-16 fighter jets, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte confirmed on Friday. He wrote on social media that he notified his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of the caretaker Cabinet's decision during a phone call on Friday morning.
The Netherlands already confirmed in August that it would supply Ukraine with the aircraft after receiving permission from the United States, where the warplanes are manufactured. Zelenskyy had requested the aircraft during earlier conversations with its allies. Although it was never officially confirmed that the Netherlands would provide 18 aircraft in total, it was known that the Dutch military had 18 surplus F-16s that were not in an operational state. The other 24 are operational, even as the Dutch Air Force has been upgrading its fleet with the newer F-35. Rutte confirmed the number of aircraft on Friday. "Today I also informed President Zelenskyy of our government’s decision to prepare an initial 18 F-16 fighter aircraft for delivery to Ukraine. The delivery of F-16s is one of the most important elements of the agreements made on military support for Ukraine," Rutte wrote. An export permit is still needed to supply the jets, and other conditions related to personnel and infrastructure will need to be "met before delivery can take place." Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren explained that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will still need to make sure that handing the planes over to Ukraine meets European Union requirements about exporting arms. Zelenskyy thanked Rutte for the military support in a post on X. "We discussed frontline developments, the situation in the Black Sea, and Ukraine’s current military needs, including artillery, drones, and air defense," he wrote. The Netherlands has already helped spearhead an effort to create a training center for F-16 fighter pilots in Romania. The facility is being used to teach Ukrainian and Romanian pilots how to fly the aircraft. At least five F-16 units are on the ground at the Romanian location, but they will remain property of the Netherlands. The training takes an estimated six to eight months. "This decision confirms the Netherlands’ undiminished commitment to providing Ukraine with the support it needs to respond to the ongoing Russian aggression," Rutte stated. He also said that the Netherlands is available to assist Ukraine in its ongoing effort to join the European Union. "I also assured President Zelenskyy that the Netherlands will make every effort to ensure agreement is reached at the European Council meeting in February 2024 on financial support from the EU," Rutte said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán blocked the EU's bid to offer 50 billion euros in support to Ukraine earlier this month. After the EU summit in mid-December, Rutte said he was optimistic that that European leaders would come together in agreement early next year. "It is an assumption. And that assumption is that you need just a little more time," he said at the time. "I also thanked the Netherlands for actively supporting the opening of Ukraine’s EU accession talks and emphasized the importance of providing €50 billion in long-term EU assistance for Ukraine as soon as possible," Zelenskyy said on Friday. "We agreed to continue our joint work on security guarantees following the G7 Vilnius Declaration. We also discussed the next Peace Formula meeting and efforts to further consolidate international support for the Ukrainian vision of a just peace." A Ukrainian military officer allegedly coordinated last year's attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, according to The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources in Ukraine and Europe.
No one has taken responsibility for the September 2022 explosions, off the Danish island of Bornholm, that damaged three out of four offshore natural gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea and delivering Russian gas to Europe. The United States and NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, called it an act of sabotage, while Moscow said it was an act of international terrorism. Germany, Denmark and Sweden have launched investigations into the Nord Stream explosions, which sent plumes of methane into the atmosphere in a leak that lasted several days. Roman Chervinsky, a decorated 48-year-old colonel who served in Ukraine’s special operations forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, according to people familiar with his role, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Chervinsky, sources say, managed logistics and support for a six-person team that rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines, The Washington Post reported. On Sept. 26, 2022, three explosions caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, The attack left only one of the four gas links in the network intact as winter approached. A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military told the Reuters news agency he had "no information" about the claim. The Ukrainian foreign ministry and Kyiv's domestic security service, the SBU, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The newspaper also reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has denied Kyiv's role in the blasts, had been unaware of the operation. Zelenskyy last week replaced the head of Ukraine’s special operations forces. Chervinsky denied any involvement in the pipeline explosions. An outspoken critic of Zelenskyy’s administration, he said the case against him is politically motivated. “All speculations about my involvement in the attack on Nord Stream are being spread by Russian propaganda without any basis,” Chervinsky said in a written statement to The Washington Post and Germany's Der Spiegel newspaper, which conducted a joint investigation of his role. Chervinsky is currently under arrest for attempting to convince a Russian pilot in 2022 to defect to Ukraine, which investigators say led to a deadly Russian attack on a Ukrainian air base. Although he is accused on acting alone in this, his commanding officer at the time, Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak, told Ukrainian media earlier this year that senior military leadership had signed off on the plot to lure the Russian pilot. The Post and Der Spiegel collaborated on reporting and wrote separate stories that they agreed to publish at the same time. Separately, three Russian soldiers were killed Saturday in a blast in the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol, according to Ukraine’s intelligence directorate. "This act of revenge, carried out by representatives of the local resistance, “a directorate statement said, “took place in the New Post offices seized by the Russians." Reuters said the Russians have not mentioned the incident and the news agency has not been able to verify the incident. The journalistic cliché that World War III is already underway has often circulated from one publication or another for decades. Indeed, since the beginning of the 21st century, when the US was attacked on 11 September 2001, people have been talking about a clash of civilizations as a new form of global conflict. Then, Washington's declared "war on terror" got bogged down in the Middle East before disappearing from the agenda altogether. Instead, the "good old" rivalry between the major countries was gradually revived, first in the political, propaganda and economic spheres, but with an increasingly pronounced military and force element. This was accompanied by warnings of the risk of a World War III in the classic sense of the last century. Such considerations, however, remained notional. Today, the idea of a "World War III " is fathomable. Nevertheless, a similar situation to World Wars I and II seems inadmissible at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, although some commentators see similar features in the armed conflict in Ukraine. Structurally, however, the state of affairs is very different. The presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's major players and a very complex range of significant and diverse players in international politics rule out (and make highly unlikely) a head-on collision between the major powers or their blocs, as was the case in the last century. However, the changes taking place on the world stage and in the balance of power are so serious that they are "worthy" of a confrontation on the scale of a world war. In the past, such shifts have led to major military clashes. However, now the "world war" that some repeatedly talk about is a chain of large but localized confrontations, each of which in one way or another involves the main players, balances on the verge of spilling over from the original zone, and is indirectly linked to other hotbeds of instability. This sequence of military events began with the Middle East conflicts of the last decade (Yemen and Syria), continued in Ukraine since 2014, then the South Caucasus and now Palestine. It is clearly too early to put an end to this list. End of status quo means world entering long period of turmoilInternational colleagues have already pointed out that in the context of the disappearance of former frameworks and constraints (the very decline of the world order, which now seems to be universally recognized), dormant conflicts and disputes are almost inevitably resurfacing. What has been held back by the pre-existing arrangements is erupting. In principle, everything is quite traditional; it was so before and it will be so after. The ideologization of world politics in the twentieth century meant that the end of that political period was very ideological in itself. The view that humanity has found the optimal political model, which will turn the page on previous confrontations, has triumphed. This is the only way to explain, for example, the belief that the contours of state borders will not change in the 21st century (or only by mutual agreement), because it has been decided and established that way. The historical experience of Europe and other continents in every historical period does not support such an assumption – borders have always changed fundamentally. And shifts in the balance of power and opportunity inevitably give rise to the desire to move territorial boundaries.
Another thing is that the importance of territories is different now than it was in the past. Direct control of certain spaces can now have more costs than benefits, while indirect influence is much more effective. Although it is worth noting that 15-20 years ago, at the height of economic and political globalization, it was often argued that in a fully interconnected 'flat' world, geographical and material proximity no longer mattered. The pandemic was the first and most vivid argument against this approach. The current chain of crises has forced a return to more classical ideas about the role of subordination between the regional and the global. The disappearance of the status quo means that the world has entered a long period of turmoil in which new frameworks have not yet been established (and it is not clear when they will be) and the old ones are no longer working. The formal end of the era of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (Russia has withdrawn from it, the other countries have announced the suspension of their participation) is an example of the dismantling of existing institutions. The unprecedented intensity of the wave of assaults on the UN from all sides is an attack on the main bastion of world order established after 1945. The current "World War III" is likely to endure over a long timeframe and be scattered in terms of locations. But based on its results – and there will be some – a different structure of international organizations will emerge. This is always the case. This does not mean that the UN, for example, will disappear, but there will definitely be a profound correction of the principles on which it operates. It has been almost three months since Victoria Roshchyna's family and colleagues received any word from the award-winning Ukrainian journalist.
Roshchyna, who is known for her courageous reporting on Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, disappeared shortly after passing a checkpoint. Friends and colleagues believe Russian forces detained her. The reporter had quickly pivoted from covering court cases to reporting from the front lines when Russian forces invaded her home country. As a freelance journalist, she has written for publications that include the Ukrainian news websites Hromadske and Ukrainska Pravda, as well as the broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Roshchyna told the stories of children killed in Dnipro and Berdyansk. She spoke to survivors of a missile strike in Uman and reported from Mariupol, where Russian occupiers staged a celebration in front of ruined houses. She interviewed soldiers and civilians, putting a human face to the brutality of war. But covering these stories came with great personal risk. On March 5, 2022, the car that Roshchyna was traveling in was shot at by Russian forces. She and the driver managed to escape and seek shelter in a nearby house. Roshchyna's camera and laptop were stolen from the car, according to reports from the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit. Less than a week later, Russian security agents detained Roshchyna. She was held for 10 days, hit and threatened.She detailed the experience for Hromadske, writing, "I didn't feel fear … there was only despair over the unknown and wasted time, the inability to do my job." "The fact that she was detained by Russian soldiers and lived through that experience and went back and kept reporting as if that never happened certainly shows an incredible amount of courage and tenacity and a journalist who's willing to risk everything to report the news," said Elisa Lees Munoz, executive director of the International Women's Media Foundation, or IWMF. The IWMF in 2022 awarded Roshchyna its Courage Award for her coverage of the war. One year on from presenting that award, Munoz and others are advocating for Roshchyna's release. "To disappear somebody is one of the worst things that one can do," Munoz said. "It's certainly intended to send a message to others — we can do that to anybody." |
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