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.
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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a press conference Russia would deploy troops, but it is unclear when.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the Minsk agreements, which were intended to end the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, “no longer exist” and that Russia would provide military assistance to separatists, during a press conference on Tuesday evening, according to the Russian TASS news agency.
Urgent appeal of civil society leaders of Ukraine to the Congress of the United States of America
The lives of millions of Ukrainians are at stake, and hours of delay and wrong decisions may cost dear price. If the Russian Federation is not stopped by the severest sanctions now, a disastrous war will erupt in one of the biggest countries of Europe, a breadbasket of the planet. Moreover, this war has the potential to spill over into NATO countries and grow into a large-scale regional conflict.
In the war zone:
Russian proxies launch 86 attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol sectors, incl heavy artillery and weapons banned by Minsk, reports JFO.
Syria supports the decision of its ally Russia to recognise two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, Syrian state TV quoted the Syrian foreign minister as saying on Tuesday.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has alleged mercenaries from Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been recruited and transferred to Donbas in Ukraine to fight against Moscow-backed rebels, something vehemently denied by local governments. The Russian embassy in Tirana however, did not respond to requests for clarification.
Moscow still has the initiative in a crisis it provoked but apparent Russian failure so far to engineer a phony “internal” Ukrainian opposition leaves the situation literally on a knife’s edge. Russian propaganda is attempting to claim victory already by portraying post-Afghanistan America as “exhausted” but Moscow has struggled to provoke Western diplomatic disarray. For its part, the United States has lurched from a chaotic Trump Administration to the chaos of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and finds itself having to react to Vladimir Putin’s moves all around the former Soviet periphery. Still, Washington’s stern public warnings about Russian preparations seem to have surprised Moscow and out Putin on the back foot.
With the Ukraine crisis increasingly acute, there is growing danger of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, involving a significant possibility of escalating into a full-scale war between Russian and the NATO. At the core of the crisis is how to strike an agreement on durable geopolitical order to which Ukraine is central as a crucial strategic buffer between Europe and the Eurasia, or between a peninsula and a landmass. Thus, prescribing a geopolitical settlement is more necessary than ever.
The Ukraine crisis, similar to Brexit, is a vivid demonstration of the shaky nature of unions and alliances in Europe. This is not good news for the United States as it is determined to concentrate domestically and curb the rise of China. Putin’s determination to attack Ukraine also lies in the fact that NATO has no real intention of letting Ukraine join the alliance or waging war with Russia. In fact, NATO cannot fight Russia even if it wants to. The forces of the United States in Europe are not enough at all for this purpose, the same is true of the forces of Britain and France. Despite all the warnings about the Russian threat, why have no serious efforts been made or are being made by European troops to deter Russia and most NATO countries have always refused to increase their military spending to 2% of GDP? In short, because NATO is not going to fight Russia over Ukraine.