Russia Launches Naval Exercises in Black Sea Amid Escalating Standoff with Ukraine

One day after Russia accused Ukraine of attempted incursions across the de facto border into Crimea, the territory annexed by Moscow in 2014, Kiev put its military on high alert and the Kremlin announced the start of war games in the Black Sea, raising fnars of a return to open war in the country for the first time in more than a year.

The Intersection of Three Crises

Within the past two weeks, a temporary deal to keep Greece in the eurozone was reached in Brussels, a cease-fire roadmap was agreed to in Minsk and Iranian negotiators advanced a potential nuclear deal in Geneva. Squadrons of diplomats have forestalled one geopolitical crisis after another. Yet it would be premature, even reckless, to assume that the fault lines defining these issues are effectively stable. Understanding how these crises are inextricably linked is the first step toward assessing when and where the next flare-up is likely to occur.

Russia's war in Ukraine: Is Minsk the end, or just the start?

There is no doubt who gained most from the deal reached in Minsk on February 12th to end the conflict in Ukraine: Russian President Vladimir Putin. At a minimum, a frozen conflict will block Ukraine’s progress towards NATO and the EU; and if fighting resumes, the terms of the ceasefire will leave Ukrainian forces in a weaker position than now. The only questions are why German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande were prepared to give Putin so much, after a year of Russian aggression and lies; and what the West can do now to buttress European security.




 The Minsk deal includes two documents. The first, entitled ‘a package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreements’ was signed by representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the separatist entities in Donetsk and Luhansk. This contains 13 points, modifying the original Minsk agreements of September 5th and 19th; and an annex outlining a special status for the Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. The second document is a declaration by Hollande, Merkel, Poroshenko and Putin “in support of” the package of measures.

Urgency increases from world leaders trying to broker Moscow-Ukraine cease-fire

The viability of a joint French and German proposal to halt fighting in eastern Ukraine faced significant hurdles Saturday as European and American officials attending a security conference demanded that Russia withdraw its troops while Russian officials blamed the United States for the escalating violence.

The laborious attempts to forge a deal highlighted what was being portrayed in European capitals as a last-ditch effort to prevent a sharp escalation of hostilities in a conflict raging for months on the eastern fringes of Europe. The new cease-fire proposal, being pushed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande, follows the outlines of an agreement reached in September that ultimately crumbled.

Putin Sends His 'Leopard' to the Battlefield of Eastern Ukraine

Rusia's invaded Ukraine -- again. Though this time, it appears to be moving in weapons systems hitherto unseen on the battlefield, signaling perhaps the next, more deadly, phase in a six-month war which Vladimir Putin's government continues to deny it is a party to.

The Interpreter reported on Wednesday that two different journalists documented new and advanced weapons systems in eastern Ukraine: Menahem Kahana took a picture showing a 1RL232 "Leopard" battlefield surveillance radar system in Torez, east of Donetsk; and Dutch freelance journalist Stefan Huijboom snapped these pictures, which show the 1RL232 traveling with the 1RL239 "Lynx" radar system -- as well as what looks like a mobile command unit and escort.

Ukraine, Russia and the EU

President Vladimir Putin is skilled at exploiting the weakness of his opponents. During the Ukraine crisis he has at times appeared to follow the principle that Russia should take as much as it can get away with. Therefore the fragility of the Ukrainian state is troubling. Its problems were evident during the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference that I attended recently. This annual event, run by Viktor Pinchuk, a liberal oligarch, used to take place in Crimea but has had to move to Kyiv. 

Eight months after then-president Viktor Yanukovych fled Kyiv, the Ukrainian state remains corrupt and unreformed. The politicians are divided over how to handle the Russians. The economy is shrinking and risks running out of energy. Most Ukrainians hope for closer ties to the EU – but in order to placate the Russians, the implementation of the EU-Ukraine trade agreement has been partially postponed. Meanwhile Russian propaganda that the EU provoked the crisis in Ukraine continues to resonate in many European countries.

Europe's Malaise: The New Normal?

Russia and Ukraine continue to confront each other along their border. Iraq has splintered, leading to unabated internal warfare. And the situation in Gaza remains dire. These events should be enough to constitute the sum total of our global crises, but they're not. On top of everything, the German economy contracted by 0.2 percent last quarter. Though many will dismiss this contraction outright, the fact that the world's fourth-largest economy (and Europe's largest) has shrunk, even by this small amount, is a matter of global significance.

Europe has been mired in an economic crisis for half a decade now. Germany is the economic engine of Europe, and it is expected that it will at some point pull Europe out of its crisis. There have been constant predictions that Europe may finally be turning an economic corner, but if Germany's economy is contracting (Berlin claims it will rebound this year), it is difficult to believe that any corner is being turned. It is becoming increasingly reasonable to believe that rather than an interlude in European prosperity, what we now see is actually the new normal. The key point is not that Germany's economy has contracted by a trivial amount. The point is that it has come time to raise the possibility that it could be a very long time before Europe returns to its pre-2008 prosperity and to consider what this means.

What Ukraine’s economy looks like without its Russian-speaking regions

Separatists in Luhansk want the region, and its manufacturing base, out of Kyiv's control. Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko

Russian president Vladimir Putin revived the Czarist era term for a broad swath of southeastern Ukraine, Novorossiya, in a high-profile television appearance last month. “God knows” why Russia gave up the territory in 1920, he sighed.

NATO: Russia might achieve goals in eastern Ukraine without invasion

(Reuters) - NATO's top military commander in Europe said on Monday he no longer thought regular Russian troops would enter eastern Ukraine, predicting Moscow could achieve its goals through the unconventional forces stirring up trouble there.

Let Georgia be a lesson for what will happen to Ukraine

My country's ordeal in 2008 suggests Crimea's referendum is a trick for Russia to cement its territorial and military grip

• Mikheil Saakashvili

Russian soldiers on top of a tank drive on a road near the flashpoint city of Gori in Georgia in August 2008. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

Crimeans vote tomorrow in an illegal "referendum" which will lock them into Russia's embrace. After this vote, and the takeover by Russian troops of the southern Ukraine peninsula, Vladimir Putin will claim he has legal justification for further military build-up and direct armed attack. How do I know? Because of the many painful parallels and lessons from Georgia in 2008.

Christian Le Miere: Evaluating Russia's Black Sea Fleet

There are certainly political and ethno-cultural reasons for Moscow to desire continued influence in the Crimea, but the purely military-strategic importance of Sevastopol to Russia’s broader military strategy has in fact weakened in recent years.

By Christian Le Miere, Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security

With recent protests in Ukraine’s Crimea demanding secession or reunification with Russia, much attention has been focused on Moscow’s naval base on the peninsula. What happens to the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol after the fall of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych is part of a bigger Crimean picture. There are certainly political and ethno-cultural reasons for Moscow to desire continued influence in the Crimea, but the purely military-strategic importance of Sevastopol to Russia’s broader military strategy has in fact weakened in recent years. 

Geneva deal won’t counter Russian resolve

  

With pro-Russian separatists refusing to leave captured buildings in eastern Ukraine on Friday, it is already clear that Thursday’s Geneva agreement has done little to reduce tensions on the ground – or the threat of a Russian invasion.