Global temperatures are rising, but the former Soviet Union’s frozen conflicts show no sign of a thaw. On the contrary, the ice is expanding.
Russia’s support for the election held by separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk — key cities in Ukraine’s Donbas region — indicates that the Kremlin has decided to create another semi-permanent “mini-Cold War,” this time in rebel-controlled areas of Russia’s most important neighboring country. But freezing Ukraine’s legitimate government out of the region is potentially far more destabilizing than the Kremlin’s support for the other ex-Soviet breakaway territories: Moldova’s Transnistria and the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.… Seguir leyendo »
Tema: La relación equilibrada con Rusia es determinante para la estabilidad y seguridad de Europa.
Resumen: Rusia sigue siendo una gran potencia a pesar de la pérdida de territorios y la transición política y económica sufrida desde 1989. Desde entonces, ha ejercido sus responsabilidades en asunto globales. También, al igual que otras grandes potencias, ha violado el Derecho internacional cuando sus intereses estratégicos lo exigían o han sido desatendidos por otros Estados. La pésima gestión de la crisis de Ucrania por parte de la UE ha originado la mayor crisis en Europa desde la caída del Muro. La actuación rusa en Ucrania no es conforme al Derecho internacional, como tampoco lo fue la invasión de Yugoslavia y de Irak y financiar y armar a los rebeldes en Siria.… Seguir leyendo »
Las temperaturas globales están en aumento, pero los conflictos congelados de la ex Unión Soviética no dan señales de querer derretirse. Por el contrario, el hielo se está expandiendo.
El respaldo por parte de Rusia de la elección llevada a cabo por los separatistas en Donetsk y Luhansk -ciudades clave en la región Donbas de Ucrania- indica que el Kremlin ha decidido crear otra "mini Guerra Fría" semipermanente, esta vez en zonas controladas por los rebeldes del país vecino más importante de Rusia. Pero hacerle el vacío al gobierno legítimo de Ucrania en la región es potencialmente mucho más desestabilizador que el respaldo que el Kremlin les pueda dar a los otros territorios ex soviéticos separatistas: Transnistria de Moldova y las regiones georgianas de Abjasia y Osetia del Sur.… Seguir leyendo »
The buildup of separatist forces in Donetsk, Ukraine, and Moscow's patently confrontational tone are raising the specter of another offensive in eastern Ukraine before winter grips the region. On Wednesday, NATO warned that "columns of Russian equipment, primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops" had been spotted entering Ukraine.
Is this crisis about to flare up again, just two months after Russia withdrew its forces?
Given the strategic costs, it might seem unlikely that Russia would reignite this war, especially with winter looming. Yet both the opportunity and the motivation appear to be there in Moscow.… Seguir leyendo »
Can we really say that the crisis in Ukraine is as important as meeting the challenge of ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, or Ebola, or the South China Sea?
An initial answer would be that our shifting attention is part of the problem, which Russia has consistently exploited to get what it wants. Russia maximized its deliveries of men and arms to East Ukraine in August and September to coincide with one peak of the crisis in Iraq. Appeals by the likes of former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that "considering the surrounding threats, we have to find a way out of the Ukrainian mess as soon as possible" are unfortunately attractive to some, but are an invitation to ignore our own true interests.… Seguir leyendo »
Los tiempos que vivimos suelen verse reflejados mejor en el espejo del arte. Mucho se ha escrito acerca del poscomunismo en Rusia y China, pero creo que nada de eso pinta tan bien el paisaje social y político de estos países como dos películas recientes: Un toque de pecado (China, 2013) de Jia Zhangke y Leviatán (Rusia, 2014) de Andréi Zviagintsev.
La película de Jia cuenta cuatro historias independientes, que muestran actos de extrema violencia aislados (en su mayor parte extraídos de noticias recientes). Leviatán trata sobre un hombre decente a quien el alcalde del pueblo le arruina la vida, en connivencia con la Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa y un tribunal corrupto.… Seguir leyendo »
Russian President Vladimir Putin made headlines around the world last week when he defended the 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, by which Stalin and Hitler agreed secretly to divide Eastern Europe between them. It was, Putin said, in line with the normal “methods of foreign policy” of the time.
“What is so bad about it, if the Soviet Union did not want to fight?” he asked.
Putin’s language was harsher than when last he spoke publicly on the subject, at a 2009 commemoration of the outbreak of World War II, when he dismissed “all treaties” with the Nazis as “morally unacceptable” and “politically senseless.”… Seguir leyendo »
A pair of pudgy, hairy man’s hands draped over the back of an ornate chair; two gold rings; a gold watch on a bracelet a bit too tight for the wrist; amber cufflinks pulling together crisp white cuffs that also seem a touch tight. Everything in this picture connotes wealth and excess. To the Russian eye, the dark hair on the hands also connotes someone who is ethnically non-Russian: The hands might belong to a Jew, a Tartar, an Armenian or the representative of any number of other ethnic groups that, according to stereotype, have dark hair.
This picture of a generic Shylock appeared on Oct.… Seguir leyendo »
"Back in the USSR!” Con el título de esta canción de los Beatles saludó a los periodistas occidentales recientemente un soldado ruso en Ucrania desde su camión blindado. Y su saludo tenía mucho sentido: la Rusia de Putin cada vez se parece más a lo que fue la Unión Soviética, aunque solo sea por el hecho de mantener la mentira omnipresente durante el comunismo. Ahora los soldados rusos visten uniformes sin insignias, conducen tanques sin matrícula e invaden países soberanos sin que su Gobierno lo reconozca. De hecho, los métodos de gobernar de Putin siempre se han parecido a los del imperio soviético, pero ni los occidentales quisimos darnos por enterados ni los rusos (incluso intelectuales como Solzhenitsyn) desearon perder la ilusión de que (¡por fin!)… Seguir leyendo »
La Russie défie aujourd’hui l’existence même de l’Europe, sans que les Européens et leurs dirigeants en aient pleinement conscience. L’Europe et l’Amérique – chacune pour des raisons qui leur sont propres – sont déterminées à éviter toute confrontation militaire directe avec la Russie. Or, la Russie du président Vladimir Poutine sait tirer parti de cette réticence. Violant ses obligations en vertu des traités, la Russie a décidé d’annexer la Crimée et d’établir des enclaves séparatistes dans l’est de l’Ukraine.
En septembre, le président ukrainien Petro Porochenko a reçu un accueil très enthousiaste du Congrès américain. Dans son discours, il a demandé la livraison d’armes défensives «à la fois létales et non létales».… Seguir leyendo »
On peut comprendre les difficultés éprouvées par l’opinion publique occidentale et l’Otan pour qualifier les actions de la Russie après l’occupation de la Crimée : ce pays ne se comporte pas comme un Etat qui partagerait les notions de paix et de souveraineté communes aux autres peuples. Sans déclaration de guerre, abritée derrière des terroristes formés dans des camps militaires, la Russie a envahi un Etat et s’est obstinée à le nier. Ainsi se comportent des bandits pour s’approprier le bien d’autrui.
Cette «guerre scythe» de Poutine a semé le trouble chez les Occidentaux. Pourtant, Poutine et ses hommes de main agissent conformément aux normes sociales et morales mises en place en Russie au cours des quinze dernières années et qui fondent le consensus national : la conquête de la Crimée et la guerre en Ukraine ont suscité chez 84% de Russes (1) une explosion de patriotisme pour le régime le plus corrompu qu’ait jamais connu la Russie.… Seguir leyendo »
Vladimir Yevtushenkov, an oligarch under house arrest in Moscow since mid-September on charges of money laundering, may or may not be guilty of any wrongdoing. But he is different from many of his ilk in one important way: He is one of the rare moguls who lives and pays taxes in Russia but directly owns a major stake in his London-listed company Sistema. The vast majority of his peers operate through chains of shell-companies that lead to obscure off-shore havens.
Yevtushenkov had been thought to enjoy special protection. But the fate of the once-powerful billionaire, No. 15 on the Forbes list of Russia’s richest men, has clearly changed.… Seguir leyendo »
Sweden's chase for what is widely suspected to be a submerged Russian submarine operating within its territorial waters can't help but remind older Swedes of the fact that, during the Cold War, Swedish waters were thought to be regularly covertly probed by submarines belonging to the Soviet Union.
Indeed, back in 1981, the "Whiskey on the Rocks" incident saw a Soviet attack submarine carrying nuclear-tipped torpedoes run aground on the shoals not far from the Swedish naval base at Karlskrona.
Fast forward more than three decades, and Vladimir Putin's Russia is by no means the threat -- materially or ideologically -- that the Soviet Union was during the Cold War.… Seguir leyendo »
Recent developments off the coast of Sweden raise many questions, and we do not as yet have answers.
Last week, Swedish media reported that the country's military was searching for an underwater vessel, possibly a Russian submarine, after an emergency radio transmission allegedly made in Russian (although Russia has denied it has any vessels in Swedish waters).
Now, as the Swedish Navy continues to search for the unidentified undersea vessel that may have penetrated the country's territorial waters, it's worth keeping in mind some key facts to help place the issue in perspective.
For a start, anti-submarine warfare is complex and very difficult to execute properly.… Seguir leyendo »
Earlier this month, the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, and the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, took part in a video conference to celebrate a new television partnership. Under the terms of the deal, the Russian-owned channel RT (formerly known as Russia Today) will soon begin broadcasting Spanish-language news in Argentina. Mrs. Kirchner hailed the development as a means for Argentines “to understand the real Russia,” as well as to help Russians learn about “the real Argentina, unlike the way the international media and the so-called national media portray us.”
Buenos Aires currently enjoys warm relations with Moscow for a variety of reasons.… Seguir leyendo »
Imagine the unimaginable: Suppose an American supreme court chief justice asserts in an interview that “slavery in the United States, despite its extremes, was a principal bond that maintained the deep unity of the nation.” Now replace “slavery in the United States” with “serfdom in Russia,” and you have the exact quote from an article by the chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court, Valery D. Zorkin, published on Sept. 30.
In legal terms, serfdom, an institution that bound peasants to the land, is considered to be a less-cruel form of bondage than slavery. In practice, however, Russian serfs were routinely bought and sold and regularly physically abused.… Seguir leyendo »
Last Tuesday after breakfast, I went to a post office in downtown Moscow to put my name on a Russian government blacklist.
According to a law that took effect in August, all Russians living within the country’s borders who hold foreign passports or permanent residence permits of other nations were required to register with the Federal Migration Service (F.M.S.) by Oct. 4. (Dual citizens residing outside of Russia were required to register upon their next visit.) Concealing another citizenship would result in a fine of up to 200,000 rubles (over $5,000), or up to 400 hours of community service. The deadline has now come and gone, and the F.M.S.… Seguir leyendo »
La actual crisis en Ucrania ha sido tema de análisis recurrente durante el último año. Significativamente, en esta profusión de reflexiones ha faltado un examen exhaustivo de lo que la anexión rusa de Crimea y la invasión del Este de Ucrania indican sobre la política exterior de la Unión Europea.
Durante las primeras etapas Alemania -que había apostado fuerte por la modernización de Rusia- era reacia a adoptar medidas consecuentes. Sin embargo fue Angela Merkel quien, al avanzar la crisis, promovió entre sus homólogos europeos la necesidad de un régimen amplio de sanciones efectivas.
Sin duda, este fue un paso en la dirección correcta, pero no supuso abordar las deficiencias de la política exterior que contribuyeron a desencadenar la crisis de Ucrania y que continúan socavando la respuesta de Europa -a saber, la equivocada Política Europea de Vecindad y el confuso enfoque de la política energética-.… Seguir leyendo »
Watching Russia’s worrying trajectory under President Vladimir Putin, many foreign observers ask how a leader who is so apparently driving his country toward the abyss can remain so popular. The answer is simple: Putin’s supporters — that is, a hefty majority of Russians — do not see the danger ahead.
According to the independent Levada Center, Putin’s approval rating increased from 65 percent in January to 80 percent in March, immediately after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The rate reached its peak in early August, at 87 percent, when many believed that Russia and Ukraine were on the brink of all-out war.… Seguir leyendo »
One of the main criticisms against Washington’s attempt to sanction Russian President Vladimir Putin for his aggressive actions in Ukraine is that this is driving Russia and China closer together. Such concerns are unfounded, first because the two are already close strategic partners, but more importantly because neither really trusts the other … nor should they.
The truth is, when Russia and China get in bed together, they both sleep with one eye open!
This is not to say that Sino-Russian cooperation has not been significant. Last year Russia’s Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation signed a $400 billion contract to jointly build a gas pipeline.… Seguir leyendo »
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