The road to war between Russia and Ukraine
The road to war between Russia and Ukraine
GIS and its founder, Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, have been warning for years about the possibility for conflict in Ukraine. World leaders refused to heed the signs.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, some people were shocked. Many thought that Moscow, with its buildup of troops all across Ukraine’s border, had been bluffing. For those who had been paying close attention, however, like GIS Founder and Chairman Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, it came as little surprise. GIS readers, too, will have known that the geopolitical forces had been building toward violence for a long time.
Unfortunately, not enough policymakers in the U.S. and Europe heeded the warnings. And there were many. Below, we present a selection of comments and analyses by Prince Michael himself, who had been setting out the potential scenarios and advising leaders what should be done to avoid the worst.
Superpower ambitions
For example, as far back as 2014, Prince Michael pointed out that Russia’s goal was to reestablish a geopolitical successor to the Soviet Union. In March of that year, he wrote:
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made clear that he sees the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 as the biggest tragedy in history. Now it appears he is using the Eurasian Union to reestablish a superpower, under Russian leadership, within the borders of the former Soviet Union. This explains the Kremlin’s current policies toward Ukraine, a country that wants to embrace the West and end its corrupt regime. The Kremlin is acting logically and predictably in this context.
There are large Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine that need “protecting.” Russia believes its moves are even more justified because Ukraine constitutes Russia’s southwestern flank and provides Russian access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The pretext – historically incorrect – is that Ukraine was always Russian and therefore Russia’s imperialism is defensible. Many from the West accept these hypotheses. This line of thinking is easy and means confrontation would be unnecessary. …
Using the same logic, Russia would be entitled to destabilize and lay claim to the Baltic states. They were part of Imperial Russia for a long time until 1918, and then became part of the Soviet Union in 1939 thanks to the partnership of Adolf Hitler and Russian leader Joseph Stalin. They have significant Russian-speaking minorities, control Russian access to the Baltic Sea and land access to Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad.
Russia has issued passports to Baltic nationals for some time. It has also launched cyberattacks against the Baltic states.
Russia values this geostrategic position and is fearful of losing Ukraine to Western influence.
Russia continues to deploy armed forces to Kaliningrad, situated on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland. It has about 1,500 troops with 20,000 to 30,000 tons of weaponry and ammunition in Transnistria, a thin strip east of the Dniester River on the western border of Ukraine.
Officially, Transnistria belongs to Moldova but does not recognize the Moldovan government. It is a smuggling paradise and supported by Russia for obvious reasons.
So what is the significance of these Russian “beachheads” to the West – and what will happen next?
In a comment published a month later, Prince Michael warned: “Ukraine and its new government [which had taken office on February 27, 2014] face enormous challenges and an almost impossible war-like situation with possible disintegration and a failing economy.” He continued:
The very real threat of rapid disintegration of the eastern parts of the country is one challenge. Russia values this geostrategic position and is fearful of losing Ukraine to Western influence. Crimea and its naval base are crucial to Russia’s plans. To lose the region would mean the end of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vision of regaining superpower status and would reduce the Eurasian Union to a farce. … Direct military confrontation cannot be excluded. Russia is using the pretext of legitimacy to protect the Russian population and is starting with Crimea. The regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk and probably Odesa could follow.
Thank you, Mr. Putin
Close collaboration between NATO, the United States and Europe is crucial to the defense of the West. That was the message driven home by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves (2006-2016) on receiving the Atlantic Council Freedom Award, noted Prince Michael in a comment published in June 2014.
Mr. Ilves said the Ukraine crisis meant that NATO, the U.S. and especially Europe now realized that defense is crucial and close collaboration essential. In this context, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Putin.” This refrain – thanking President Putin for the wake-up call – was repeated by other speakers at the forum.
Prince Michael underlined that Russia must not be considered an adversary of the West, but as a trade partner that should not be contained. It is only the threat from the Kremlin and Russian nationalists to reintegrate the lands of the former Soviet Union in the form of a Eurasian Union – against the wishes of the populations concerned such as in Ukraine – which has to be resisted, he wrote.
Europe has maneuvered itself into a position where Ukraine will be let down.
In another comment from 2015, entitled “Europe lets down Ukraine” repeatedly warned against the same risks of a serious conflict:
Europe and Ukraine ‘succeeded’ in signing an association agreement in March 2014. The problem is that this is just a piece of paper. Europe is unable to support Ukraine financially and unwilling to support it militarily when it faces a desperate situation. Europe has maneuvered itself into a position where Ukraine will be let down because Europe lacked political foresight and displayed military weakness.
Ukraine now risks disaster and Europe will have to pay a huge political price sometime in the future. Russia will present the bill when it books its victory in the first stage of the new Cold War.
Shifting priorities in the West
In March 2016, Prince Michael pointed out that Ukraine’s fate depends on … Ukraine itself:
The West, unable to cope with the manifold crises it faces, now primarily sees the conflict in Ukraine as a local issue. … Russia occupied and annexed Crimea. A rebellion broke out in eastern Donbas. The U.S. response was to “support” Ukraine, though not militarily. Financial backing from the European Union was insufficient and conditional. Important and easy trust-building measures, such as granting visa-free entry to Ukrainians, still remain unimplemented.
The West’s support for Ukraine was limited to words, diplomacy and sanctions against Russia. Priorities have shifted to other issues, such as the refugee crisis in Europe.
Just after Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s victory in the presidential elections in 2019, Prince Michael again reminded GIS readers that, “Better relations with Russia would also help the Ukrainian economy, but this will be a big challenge, since the countries have several difficult unresolved conflicts.” He continued:
Accepting the status quo in Crimea and the Donbas region would be dangerous – doing so could encourage further interventions by Russia. Moreover, Moscow is unlikely to tolerate a stable Ukraine, which could become too closely associated with the EU – and worse NATO. Moscow will consider such a state of affairs a challenge to Russia’s security and make every effort to destabilize the situation.
As we can see – all of the signs that pointed to today’s violence were right in front of our faces. Leaders, unfortunately, refused to see them or take them for what they were. We can only hope that they have learned their lesson, if we want to prevent an even bigger disaster in the future.
The road to war between Russia and Ukraine – (gisreportsonline.com)
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How empires enter their twilight
COMMENT BY PRINCE MICHAEL OF LIECHTENSTEIN
Historical events carry lessons for today’s Russia and Western countries.
Generalizing can lead one astray in interpreting history, but the record of thousands of years of human civilization shows with reasonable clarity that powers rise, often become arrogant, overreach and decline. As decline breeds unrest, a declining power is dangerous. When that happens, other major powers also tend to act unreasonably. They do not grasp that they might be in decline as well.
At the United Nations General Assembly in February 2022, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated, “If Russia stops fighting and leaves Ukraine, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends.” That may be correct, but it only scratches the problem’s surface. There is more to this conflict, as geopolitical fundamentals are at stake.
History offers many parallels to what we are witnessing in Europe right now. Land grabs by strong powers are nothing new. Examples of complete incorporations of neighboring states exist, but in 18th and 19th century Europe, it was rather takeovers of chunks of land by changing borders.
A British folly 120 years ago
A striking parallel to what has been happening in Ukraine occurred in Southern Africa at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the mighty British Empire attacked two independent states: the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State. It was an imprudent move for the British, contributing years later to a complete global power shift.
In the 17th century, Dutch settlers and French Huguenots, both mainly Calvinist Protestants, arrived and established roots in Africa’s southern Cape region. The area became the British Cape Colony in 1795. Many of the settlers felt oppressed by the British administration and moved their business to the empty lands in the northeast. There they created two agricultural states with republican governance. The area was of no geopolitical interest between the 1820s and the 1870s, and the Boers (“farmers” in Dutch), as the settlers were called, enjoyed their freedom.
However, with the colonial land grab in Africa advancing in the second half of the 19th century, London’s interest in the two republics increased. It began to find ways to weaken the settlers by encouraging African tribes to attack the Boer farms in the newly cultivated lands.
The First Anglo-Boer War brought heavy losses and no glory to the aggressor.
In the third quarter of the 19th century, the British pressure mounted – like Russia’s recent steps in Ukraine. Feeling colonial competition from other European powers, London wanted to create an uninterrupted security corridor in the eastern part of the African continent, from Cairo on the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope. An equally strong motivation for the British was the search for gold on the Witwatersrand in Transvaal (now the Johannesburg area). It became one of the world’s largest gold-mining centers, creating previously unimaginable wealth. Also, diamonds were found in Kimberley, in the border region between the Orange Free State and the British Cape Colony.
Pyrrhic victory
Britain attempted to suppress the Boer states in two waves. The First Anglo-Boer War (1880-1881) brought heavy losses and no glory to the aggressor. Under the 1881 peace, London consented to Boers’ self-government in Transvaal under Queen Victoria’s suzerainty, while the Boers handed external relations over to the British.
The British Empire was the world’s leading power and decided to incorporate the two independent states by force only a few years later. During the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the patriotic Boers, by far inferior in armaments and headcount, defended themselves valiantly and effectively. Despite their military and economic superiority, the arrogant British suffered many defeats in the field and, politically, a massive loss of face.
The war lasted for more than two years. The British could only defeat the two states by exhausting them and throwing an endless supply of its soldiers, armaments and other equipment into the conflict. The brutality of the British invaders was horrible. They burned down farms and fields, stole livestock and put women and children in concentration camps. Some 30,000 Boer women and children died of hunger and disease in these camps. Additionally, some 20,000 indigenous Africans, believed by the invaders to be loyal to the Boers, perished in the camps. In the face of such atrocities, the Boers finally surrendered.
Alarming similarities
The poor performance of the British military and, therefore, the invaders’ turn to atrocities, are further parallels to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
However, that land and power grab – a manifestation of jealousy between nations – was only one of the pieces in a larger mosaic of power plays that led to World War I. The Boer wars, born of London’s arrogance and greed, led to World WAR I and the ending of Europe’s global dominance and the British Empire with some 30 years of delay. It misused and sapped the continent’s strength as much as the breaking of the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in World War I. It is also interesting that young Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) lived in Natal, South Africa, during the Second Boer War. The conflict played a formative role in his life and eventually led him to launch the historic opposition to British rule in his native India.
The Boer wars were a textbook example of shortsighted political calculations within narrow, unimaginative models. However, they are also an excellent case study. The Kremlin, unfortunately, believes in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s view that “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.” The British cabinet believed in a similar misconception: that it had to take over the two countries in Southern Africa to protect the empire and the wealth of its possessions there. Other European powers, such as Germany, showed sympathy for the Boer states and gave them some support, but not enough to make a difference.
The role of false narratives
The Australian-born historian Christopher Clark wrote “Sleepwalkers,” a superb analysis of how early in the 20th century, the leading European powers slipped into a self-defeating war by sheer ignorance, shortsightedness and preoccupation with secondary issues. Professor Clark, who teaches at the University of Cambridge and has been knighted for his service to Anglo-German relations, also refuted the vaevictis (woe to the vanquished) post-World War I narrative that frames Germany and Austria-Hungary as the culprits. The blame is on all European powers.
To London’s credit, two personalities learned from the disaster: King George VI and Winston Churchill
Something else is also important: war needs propaganda narratives. If a country starts believing its legend and moralizing, things quickly become dangerous. Britain and France framed their war as a defense of freedom and democracies against autocrats. That was a bold-faced lie, as Germany and Austria were already constitutional states with robust parliaments. The only big autocracy was Russia, London’s and Paris’s ally. The Germans’ march through neutral Belgium was ethically not different from Britain’s behavior in southern Africa. However, that made a poor excuse for Berlin.
The British Empire did not stop and retreat. Transvaal and the Orange Free State had to cease fighting to stop the atrocities and save their wives and children. Fifty years later, the British Empire no longer existed. To London’s credit, two personalities learned from the disaster: King George VI (1936-1952) and Winston Churchill, the two-time (1940-1945 and 1951-1955) British prime minister. They realized the necessity of resisting the Nazis at all costs and (unsuccessfully) tried to stop Russian dictator Joseph Stalin’s land grab toward the end of World War II.
The lessons to finally learn
Those historical events carry lessons for today’s Russia and Western countries. The West must resist the Russian invasion of Ukraine with all its means.
For Russia, it would be much better to ignore the Brzezinski axiom and concentrate instead on its own development. Only upon a successful Ukrainian defense can an equitable peace be achieved.
A seemingly secondary, distant conflict in southern Africa triggered a slow-fuse descent into a catastrophic, multipower war in Europe. That can serve as a dire warning because we might be in a similar situation today.
Declining empires foster dangerous instability – GIS Reports (gisreportsonline.com)
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G7 finance chiefs set stage for Hiroshima summit with Ukraine and supply chains
NIIGATA – Group of Seven finance chiefs and central bankers on Saturday set the stage for a G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima next week, with wide-ranging discussions focusing on global economic and financial stability, the Ukraine war and supply chain diversification.
In a joint communique released at the conclusion of the three-day meeting, officials reaffirmed the G7’s “united response” to the Ukraine conflict, labeling it one of the “biggest uncertainties over the global economic outlook” and pledging “unwavering support” for “as long as it takes.”
The meeting was joined virtually by Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko, while South Korea, India, Brazil, Comoros, Indonesia and Singapore were also involved in the talks.
The ministers and central bank chiefs also discussed bank runs following the collapse of U.S. lender First Republic Bank earlier this month, a failure that exacerbated worries set off by the March collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
In an apparent aim to mitigate concerns over the growing banking sector turmoil, the joint statement reiterated “that our financial system is resilient,” while G7 members stand ready to take necessary actions to maintain stability.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki told a news conference at the end of the summit that while “a bank run used to be physical,” it’s now something that can occur online 24/7. Due to these digitalization-driven changes in the banking environment, “this is a common challenge to be tackled,” he added.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kauzo Ueda said that while authorities in the U.S. had taken “appropriate actions” in response to the crisis, other regulatory developments would continue to be discussed.
Supply chain diversification was also one of the summit’s primary agenda items, with Suzuki emphasizing that low- and middle-income countries — an apparent euphemism for “Global South” nations — could be more involved in the supply-chain ecosystem for green energy products.
Global South countries refers largely to emerging and developing nations mainly in the Southern Hemisphere.
“Throughout the pandemic we learned that supply chains tended to depend on a limited number of countries,” he said, noting that in order to improve economic security, “middle- and low-income countries … can take on bigger roles and we will support that and benefit from it.”
In a bid to bring more developing nations on board plans to further strengthen global supply chains, G7 finance chiefs agreed to launch the RISE (Resilient and Inclusive Supply-chain Enhancement) partnership by the end of this year. Few other details, including how much would be spent on the initiative, were revealed.
But while supply chains were discussed, the group avoided any direct mention of China — a major trading partner to both many G7 countries and Global South nations.
Still, a joint statement focusing on alleged “economic coercion” by China is expected to emerge from the G7 Hiroshima summit next week, Reuters reported. This will likely be accompanied by a proposal outlining a strategy for how G7 countries can work to counter the tactic more broadly.
The economic situation in the U.S. was also under the spotlight Saturday, although officials were mum about ongoing negotiations over the federal debt ceiling — something that President Joe Biden earlier said could prompt him to cancel his trip to Hiroshima, though the White House said he was expected to attend.
On Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that failure to reach an agreement to raise or suspend a debt limit would be “catastrophic.” Yellen has said that the government could run out of money as soon as June 1, calling for an urgent agreement to raise or suspend the $31.4 trillion (￥4.22 quadrillion) limit.
Other economic challenges broached during the meeting included the need to strengthen global cryptocurrency regulations due to money laundering concerns as well as the need to boost international coordination on climate change and mobilize more finance for those efforts.
Finance and central bank chiefs stressed their commitment to fight lingering inflation as well.
G7 finance chiefs set stage for Hiroshima summit with Ukraine and supply chains | The Japan Times
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How Sanctioned Western Goods Are Still Flowing Into Russia
Cluster of ex-Soviet republics is hub for shipments of U.S., European dual-use goods to Russia
BERLIN—A group of former Soviet republics has emerged as a major transshipment hub for U.S. and European computer chips, lasers and other products with civilian and military uses headed for Russia, according to Western officials and data compiled by The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. and European Union exports of sensitive, so-called dual-use goods to countries in Russia’s neighborhood rose sharply in 2022. So did these countries’ shipments of these products to Russia, often by a similar multiple, an analysis of United Nations trade data shows.
The data suggests Moscow continues to acquire crucial Western goods—whose sale is mostly restricted by U.S. and European sanctions—as it seeks to keep its economy afloat and its war machine running.
In total, U.S. and EU goods exports to Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan rose to $24.3 billion last year from $14.6 billion in 2021. These countries collectively increased their exports to Russia by nearly 50% last year to around $15 billion.
This booming trade route—which analysts at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development call the Eurasian roundabout—is a sign of Russia’s success in finding new ways to acquire sought-after goods despite Western sanctions, European officials say.
Rerouting Exports
Former Soviet states increased their imports from the U.S. and EU by more than $9 billion in 2022. At the same time, their exports to Russia increased by nearly $5 billion.
Russian companies advertise their ability to acquire sanctioned goods this way. For example, Imex-Expert offers to “import sanctioned goods from Europe, America to Russia through Kazakhstan.” Its website boasts: “Bypassing sanctions 100%.”
The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Digging into the numbers shows a substantial trade in dual-use items. The U.S. and the EU exported more than $8.5 million worth of integrated circuits to Armenia last year, for instance, more than 16 times the $530,000 exported in 2021, according to U.N. data.
At the same time, Armenia’s exports of the circuits to Russia jumped to $13 million from less than $2,000 in 2021.
A similar picture emerges with Western shipments of lasers to Kyrgyzstan and measuring instruments, including tools for checking voltage and power, to Uzbekistan. Both countries saw a boost in those exports to Russia.
Washington and Brussels have barred the sale to Russia of various types of these goods since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
While the amount of trade between the former Soviet republics and Russia is small compared with Russia’s trade with China, which has become Russia’s main supplier and economic backstop, the new trade route allows Moscow to get its hands on Western technology it has trouble getting elsewhere.
Such technologies are critical for Russia’s war in Ukraine, experts say. Russia has limited ability to replace Western components with its own products.
“Electronics are needed everywhere from aircraft and cruise missiles manufacturing to command, control and communication systems in armored vehicles and tanks,” said Pavel Luzin, an expert on Russia’s military and visiting scholar at Tufts University.
Sarah Stewart, chief executive officer of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington-based think tank that analyzes Russian trade data, said small volumes moving through a number of countries “add up to make a significant contribution” to Moscow’s efforts to get hold of foreign technology.
“Russia’s continued access to these items, including rerouted foreign brands that would otherwise be banned from direct export to Russia, feeds rather than disables Russia’s war efforts,” she said.
Representatives of the governments of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the Armenian government said the country wasn’t “involved in any processes or actions aimed at bypassing EU or U.S. sanctions.” He said Armenian customs had increased controls for sanctioned goods and that authorities had discussed the issue with the U.S.
In the latest proposed package of European sanctions, which must be approved by member states, the European Commission for the first time recommended sanctioning companies from the region, including two from Uzbekistan and one from Armenia, for supplying dual-use products to Russia.
In late February, on a visit to Kazakhstan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington is “watching compliance with sanctions very closely,” including with its Central Asian partners.
Complicating sanctions compliance, Central Asian officials say, is the membership of Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, which largely eliminates customs borders among its members.
Since the war in Ukraine began, the EU has banned the sale of products worth around half of prewar exports to Russia and prohibited the import of around two-thirds of the bloc’s prewar purchases from Russia.
Companies that facilitate trade of Western goods through third countries have been offering their services in Russia. Moscow last year legalized so-called parallel imports of goods, meaning that importers can legally bring in products via third countries without the original manufacturers’ consent.
One company, Moscow-based customs broker Standard Group, describes on its website a process whereby its subsidiary in Armenia buys goods from the U.S. or Europe that then arrive, clear customs and pay value-added tax there. The cargo is then sold to a Russian business, in rubles, and sent to Russia. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In one example on their website, Standard Group says it can deliver a 900-pound compressor from the U.S. that costs $13,900 via Armenia to the Russian Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk. It charges around $770 for customs-brokering services and $30,000 for delivery to Moscow.
Exports of Western-made household items via the former Soviet states have also surged. Western officials have said that Russia is stripping some appliances for their chips. Last year, after its imports of washing machines from the EU surged, Uzbekistan’s exports of the appliances to Russia jumped to $10.6 million from around $90,000 the year before.
It isn’t clear that sellers in the West or buyers in these countries are breaching sanctions by participating in the roundabout trading system. U.S. and European businesses aren’t selling directly to Russian buyers, while none of the Central Asian and Caucasus countries involved are party to the sanctions.
Western officials are racing to close the loophole. As part of its 11th package of sanctions on Russia, the EU has proposed setting up sanctions regimes for export bans of certain products to non-EU countries or companies believed to be helping Russia circumvent Western restrictions. It is also considering tightening EU rules on what goods can transit through Russia to its neighbors.
Senior U.S., U.K. and EU sanctions officials have visited Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in recent months to press the governments to choke off trade patterns they believe are helping Russia evade sanctions.
“What is very suspicious is that suddenly, exports of these products increase to Central Asia and the Caucasus after sanctions are increased,” said Beata Javorcik, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s chief economist.
The EBRD calculates that this “roundabout trade” accounts for about 5% of the decline in U.S. and European exports to Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, with a much larger diversion of trade through China and Turkey.
But for some products, including computers, the increase in exports from the EU and the U.K. to Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan was larger than the decline in direct sales to Russia.
Speaking to reporters last month, the EU’s sanctions-enforcement czar, David O’Sullivan, said his first priority is to work with countries where there is possible Russian sanctions circumvention, including Central Asian ones. Tougher measures, like export bans or sanctions, would only be considered if no steps are then taken.
“We are very respectful of the sovereignty and the autonomy of our interlocutors,” he said. “We just put emphasis on what I think is a common concern, namely that their territory should not be used as a platform for circumvention.”
How Sanctioned Western Goods Are Still Flowing Into Russia - WSJ
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