USA – INSIDE RUSSIA AND EURASIA

Zelensky’s Diplomatic Offensive in the U.S.

By Nina Bachkatov

On 18 September, President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled a “fully prepared” Victory Plan, marking his second political gamble in as many weeks. The first was the unexpected cross-border attack on Russia’s Kursk region, which reportedly caught even senior Ukrainian officials by surprise. This 10-point Victory Plan, more radical and uncompromising than the 4-point Peace Plan presented in February, adopts a “take it or leave it” approach towards Ukraine’s allies. Its contents will be “discussed” during a meeting with President Biden on 26 September, the focal point of Zelensky’s five-day tour of the United States.

Lucerne: Zelensky’s diplomatic challenge

By Nina Bachkatov

A “Peace Summit” in Ukraine will be held in Switzerland on June 15-16, following a request made by President Zelensky in January. The Ukrainian president expects participants to discuss the 10-point peace plan he presented to President Biden in December 2022, and subsequently to the G7, G20, and other international organisations, when the military situation was more favorable. Now, with the expectation that the war might extend to 2025 or beyond, this meeting poses a significant diplomatic challenge for Zelensky. He envisions a global pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian bloc, including not only Western allies but also states that have so far maintained an ambiguous neutrality.

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Pages: 12

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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Pages: 12

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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Pages: 12

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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Pages: 12

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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Pages: 12

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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Pages: 12