On April 12, while on a trip to Egypt, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated:
“Questions are being asked about what Russia is doing on the border with Ukraine,” said Lavrov. “The answer is very simple. We live there, it’s our country. But what is the United States doing thousands of kilometres from its own territory with its warships and troops in Ukraine?”
What explains Russia’s point of view? According to conversations with Jake Stebbing, a Russian analyst, Russia’s defensive posture vis-a-vis NATO is the country’s primary source of insecurity. As seen and explained here by John Mauldin, Russia is, in some ways, a nearly landlocked country, given that its major population centers are near continental Europe and its northern oceans are difficult to access for much of the year. Moreover, the United States, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey--all military allies--operate in the Black Sea. Estonia, a NATO member, sits within a hundred miles of St. Petersburg, Russia. Mauldin writes, “It should be no surprise then that Russia’s national strategy is to move its frontier as far west as possible.” This helps explain Lavrov’s question above. Russia views NATO, led by the United States, as aggressive and expansionary; to push back, Russia threatens bordering countries.
Russia’s neighbors, especially Ukraine, see things in exactly the opposite way.
Over the last two weeks, Russia has moved military equipment and troops into Crimea and areas along the Russian-Ukrainian border, where Russia has supported separatists. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine made a visit on April 12 to the region, where he spoke with troops and reporters in the trenches. There, he reiterated a call for Ukraine to join NATO to better defend against Russian aggression.
Both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have blamed Russia for escalating tensions in the region. There’s also support for Ukraine in the French and British capitals. Turkey, which is apparently in coordination with Ukraine and the United States, announced that two American warships would enter the Black Sea this week. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held meetings with Zelensky over the previous weekend and publicly restated his support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and Turkey’s refusal to recognize Russia’s seizure of Crimea.
It is unclear how far the United States and NATO will go to defend Ukraine. According to a White House press release describing a call with Vladimir Putin, the president “emphasized the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The President voiced our concerns over the sudden Russian military build-up in occupied Crimea and on Ukraine’s borders, and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions.” The Kremlin readout of the call indicated that “approaches to a political settlement [to the Ukrainian issue should be] based on the Minsk Package of Measures.”
Although Ukraine and Russia agreed to the conditions established at Minsk, their order of implementation was not determined. Moreover, it remains to be seen if and how Ukraine will ever provide the political autonomy to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that the Minsk accords require, as such an outcome appears enormously favorable to Russia. As for the United States, the State Department indicated it “will maintain sanctions against Russia until it returns control of Crimea to Ukraine and fully implements its commitments under the Minsk agreements.”
The question for the Biden administration is: how can the United States prevent a new military escalation from Moscow and ensure Russian compliance with the Minsk accords?
Cover image by: Oleksandr Klymenko/Reuters at https://www.ft.com/content/6a3d49e4-ffc8-4fd2-90c8-8516c2c89c8f