To induce Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons inherited on the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the U.S., Great Britain and Russia agreed to provide assurances. If Washington were to allow Russia to gobble up the rest of Ukraine, it would tell non-nuclear states they must have nuclear arsenals because they cannot rely on the nuclear weapons powers for security.
US ambassador to the UN charged that Moscow was making claims on “all territories” of the pre-Soviet Union Russian Empire • Russian FM: Ukraine has no right to sovereignty
“The Kremlin has taken another step towards the revival of the Soviet Union,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in an address to soldiers on Tuesday.
The Moscow-backed regions have been thrust to the forefront of an international crisis over a Russian military buildup hinting at invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to recognize two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine as independent entities in a signing ceremony shown on state television on Monday.
Russia recognizes the independence of the breakaway east Ukrainian regions within their current boundaries.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday questioned whether Ukraine had a right to sovereignty because he said the government in Kyiv did not represent the country’s constituent parts, the Interfax news agency reported.
Cumhurbaşkanı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Rusya’nın sözde Donetsk ve Luhansk’ı tanımasına ilişkin, “Kararı kabul edilmez olarak değerlendiriyoruz. Tarafları sağduyu ve uluslararası hukuka riayete çağırıyoruz.” değerlendirmesinde bulundu.
The Ukraine Crisis Should Force New Delhi to Rethink Its Russia Policy
Ever since Russia began massing troops on the Ukrainian border, the government in Kyiv has been working frenetically to shore up international support. For the most part, it has focused on its partners in Europe and North America. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He is regularly on the phone with U.S. President Joe Biden. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has conferenced with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and he attended a December NATO ministerial meeting to discuss the Russian buildup. In a December article for Foreign Affairs, Kuleba called on the West to more actively and aggressively support Kyiv.
The Ukraine crisis is primarily a standoff between Russia and the West, but off to the side, another player stands awkwardly: China. Beijing has tried to walk a fine line on Ukraine. On one hand, it has taken Russia’s side, blaming NATO expansion for causing the crisis and alleging that U.S. predictions of an imminent invasion are aggravating it. On the other hand, especially as the risk of military conflict has grown, it has called for diplomacy over war.
Settling for Less in the Middle East
There is no question that the Middle East is a mess. The usual explanations for the disarray, however, fail to capture the root cause. Sectarianism, popular discontent with unrepresentative governments, economic failure, and foreign interference are the usual suspects in most analyses, but they are symptoms of the regional crisis, not causes. The weakness, and in some cases collapse, of central authority in so many of the region’s states is the real source of its current disorder. The civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, along with the frail governments in Iraq, Lebanon, and the quasi state of Palestine, define the long-term geopolitical challenge of the region. These political vacuums invite the intervention of powers near and far. They allow sectarian and ethnic identities to become more salient. They give terrorist groups opportunities for growth. They impede economic development. And they create profound human suffering, which leads to massive refugee flows.
The threat of war is difficult to beat when it comes to mending or enhancing a damaged reputation. President Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, both derided as ineffective in domestic policy only a few weeks ago, are now reborn as statesmen capable of guiding their countries through the minefield of Eastern European politics.
Europe’s most divisive energy project, worth $11 billion, was finished in September.
Germany on Tuesday halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, designed to double the flow of Russian gas direct to Germany, after Russia formally recognized two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.