Still Waiting for the Ukrainian Counter-offensive

By Nina Bachkatov

For weeks, the late spring Ukrainian counter-offensive has the object of intense speculation as it has been in late September, when the fall of Kherson seemed to pave the way for a roll back of Russian troops. But the situation is different today. During the winter, the West has responded to president Zelensky’s requests for the delivery of sophisticated offensive and defensive weaponry, and trained thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to man them. In those conditions, Ukrainian forces should be able to succeed in a counter-offensive, providing their country with a strong position at the negotiation table. In the meantime, the West has been scouting the world, to find ammunitions compatible with Ukrainian guns, sometimes bidding against each other or using dubious intermediaries. The Ukrainian forces consume ammunitions in huge quantities, which means more of it before and after the counter-offensive’s start.

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Crimea: the End of a Taboo

By Nina Bachkatov

The taboo concerning the fate of Crimea had just started to crumble, when the incident of 15 March involving a Russian fighter plane and an American unmanned drone put the Black Sea region under renewed international scrutiny – a region involving Ukrainian southern ports and the peninsula that Ukrainian forces want to regain. It was the first direct confrontation between two countries, Russia and the U.S., that are not technically at war which each other, but are actively involved on the dividing line about the European continent’s security. This kind of incident was due to happen in a region where Russians and the “allies of Ukraine” are testing the reactivity of each other in international airspace (or waters). In this case, the test concerned so-called “restricted zones”, unilaterally announced by Moscow in the framework of its invasion, extending Russian rights to occupied Ukrainian territories in 2014 and 2022.

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EU “diversified” aid to Ukraine

By Nina Bachkatov

The EU carries on with the preparation of its 20-21 October during which China will be the elephant in the room and all the complexity of the war in Ukraine the centre piece. After 8 months of violence and devastations, the EU is confronted with the full consequences of the sanctions it had imposed on Russian individuals and companies to undermine president Putin leadership and to starve Russia’s budgetary capacities to sustain a war.

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Putin’s new approach about Ukraine

By Nina Bachkatov

The successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, backed by Western new weapons and shared intelligence resources, obliged president Putin to come out. It took the form of a televised address to the nation, against a background of leakages and unusual stage crafting. It was first due to take place on the 20th evening, then it was postponed for the next day, at 8, then at 9 o’clock. That was enough to unleash new speculation concerning Putin’s physical and moral condition. The usual well-informed sources said that he had been so affected by fever and coughs that he was unable to face the cameras, despite the dispatch of a large medical staff; and that the program shown as a single tirade was in fact a re-mix of interrupted sessions.

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An orgy of summits around Ukraine and global competition

By Nina Bachkatov

In recent weeks, world’s leaders have been running from a summit to another one. Among Western allies, the key words were unity and solidarity; among the others, it was about multipolarity and convergence. But the background of all those diplomatic activities have been, and will be for a while, the war in Ukraine and its global consequences. There is also the growing awareness that the cost of the military operation and sanctions are indeed bleeding Russia, but much more Ukraine.

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Ukraine, the diplomatic dilemnas

Nina Bachkatov

On 24 March, a month after Russian forces crossed Ukrainian borders, president Bidden was in Brussels for meetings of EU, NATO and G7. Members were due to reinforce the united front against president Putin by agreeing to deliver more military aide for Ukraine, to enlarge sanctions against Russia, and to adopt a strategic “compass” that will guide Western powers in their relations with Russia. A country now perceived as a threat to almost everything that matters in the West. Participants were moved by the video address of the Ukrainian president calling for more Western efforts, and new sanctions more radical than those they were prepared to launch. But the representatives of the 3 institutions that gathered for two days in Brussels have been rallying around the idea once popular among Cold warriors minded milieux – that Putin does not want to destroy Ukraine, but all the democratic world.

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The eastern partnership under test

By Nina Bachkatov

The15 December meeting of the Eastern Partnership’s members was not a success, and could not have been when political, economic and military lines have been further blurred by tension between Russia and one of its core members – Ukraine. At least it took place, but the discussions and the general tone after the meeting provided another signal that European external affairs are split into a growing array of actors and interests. Parallelly to this summit, the European Council held a summit with Russia toping the agenda. Thanks to the increasingly aggressive foreign policy of Vladimir Putin, EU leaders managed to come with a unified position about new sanctions to apply in case Russia would invade Ukraine.

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