Ukraine’s leaders have been working to calm anxiety among the population as the threat of a Russian invasion continues to loom. On social media platforms, Ukrainians have been trading tips on how to prepare for war. On the streets of the capital, Kyiv, life continues as normal and many people are reluctant to speak openly about the tensions. In this report narrated by Jon Spier, for VOA, Ricardo Marquina is in Kyiv and has their story.
Camera: Ricardo Marquina
Produced by: Ricardo Marquina, MHarton
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Переможець конкурсу на посаду директора Державного бюро розслідувань Олексій Сухачов пересувається на елітному позашляховику Toyota Land Cruiser
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Центральноазійські країни звинуватили одна одну в перекритті дороги, що перетинає кордон, і відкритті вогню
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Russian officials have said they don’t need peace at any cost, but what price are they prepared to pay for war?
The answer to that question would help Western policymakers determine what they must do to deter Russian leader Vladimir Putin as he seeks to remake Europe’s post-Cold War security order to his liking.
Western leaders say the Russian leader is prepared to invade Ukraine if he fails to secure the concessions he wants from the United States and NATO that in effect would carve out for Russia a Soviet-era-like sphere of influence across eastern Europe. Russian officials deny they have any intentions to invade their neighbor, despite an unprecedented massive military buildup along the borders of Ukraine.
Dmitri Trenin, a longtime Kremlin-watcher and director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank, worries the lack so far of a diplomatic solution “will logically lead to a further escalation of the crisis, and increase the chances the only way out of it will be through the use of what Russian officials call military-technical means.”
Washington consistently has rejected Putin’s demand that Ukraine never to be allowed to join NATO, as well as his insistence the Western alliance remove any military presence in other former Soviet bloc nations which are now NATO members.
Trenin doubts a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine is likely, though he concedes in a commentary the situation remains volatile and unpredictable. By escalating tensions with the West to a boiling point, Moscow may consider it already has achieved some wins, including forcing the U.S. to discuss European strategic issues for the first time since the end of the Cold War, he says. Trenin also contends Putin most likely has squelched any chance of NATO admitting Ukraine as a member.
Others, though, are reading the geopolitical confrontation differently. Timothy Ash, a risk analyst at Bluebay Asset Management in London, fears Putin is a gambler who may have gone too far to back down. He agrees the Russian leader already has notched up some accomplishments.
“Putin has enhanced his image as the guy who calls the shots and the poker player with all the cards. More than ever, he is seen as a leader who everyone has to contend with if they want solutions to the geopolitical problems that he typically creates himself,” Ash says.
But Ash cautions: “If the Russian leader does not proceed with some form of military action in the weeks ahead, his bluff will have been called” and he would risk “emerging from the current crisis as a net loser unless he proceeds further. Does he see it the same way? If so, will he escalate from here? At this point, he may feel that he has little choice.”
Risk-taker
Putin appears to relish courting, calculating and taking risks. In 2019, the editors of Britain’s Financial Times newspaper conducted a 90-minute interview with the Russian leader. They noted: “Just before midnight, Vladimir Putin perks up at the mention of the word ‘risk.’ It encapsulates the man and his 20 years in power.”
His interviewers talked with him near a bronze statue of Russia’s legendary and expansionist Tsar Peter the Great, one of Putin’s heroes who carved out a Russian empire in the 18th century. They tried to explore whether the Russian president is a rash gambler or a calculating, and more cautious, risk-taker. But he was elusive and teasing.
They asked him if his appetite for risk-taking had increased with each passing year. He responded: “It did not increase or decrease. Risk must always be well-justified.” But then Putin cited a popular Russian phrase: “He who doesn’t take risks, never drinks champagne.”
Some risks, Putin clearly thinks, are beneath leaders of great powers to fret over. Asked about the attempted assassination in 2018 in England of the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, which the British government has blamed on the Kremlin, Putin bristled. “Listen, all this fuss about spies and counterspies, it is not worth serious interstate relations. This spy story, as we say, is not worth five kopecks.” A kopeck is worth a hundredth of a ruble.
Invading Ukraine would cost Russia a lot more, and the risks would be massive in terms of loss of life (Russian, as well as Ukrainian) along with treasure. Putin and his aides have made no secret that a key domestic goal is to upgrade and modernize Russia’s economy. In his Financial Times interview, Putin highlighted that, saying, “The most important task we need to achieve is to change the structure of the economy and secure a substantial growth of labor productivity through modern technologies.” One of his aides emphasized that in an interview, too, with VOA a few months earlier.
War’s downsides
War in Ukraine possibly may be too big of a risk for Putin to take, reckon some longtime Putin-watchers. Economically for Russia, it likely would result in capital flight, with many foreign investors fleeing the country or reducing their investments and would mean much slower economic growth.
All of that would lead to declining living standards of ordinary Russians, which in turn could trigger the kind of major social unrest that rocked Kazakhstan this month and which the Kremlin always fears. Russians already are complaining about feeling an economic pinch and Putin’s popularity and trust ratings in opinion polls have been slumping for months.
Modernization of the economy would be set back by years and possibly decades by a further wave of tough sanctions — especially if Washington includes in them, as it has threatened to do, novel export controls that would bar the export to Russia of products that are fitted with electronic components and software designed and/or manufactured in the United States.
The export controls would disrupt strategic Russian industries, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing and civilian aerospace sectors, Biden administration officials say. They note there is hardly a semiconductor on the planet that is not made with American tools or designed with American software.
“Despite being described as reckless, Putin is anything but,” notes Eugene Rumer, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelligence Council. Now an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, a Washington-based think tank. “Putin surely is not blind to the risks of war,” he has argued.
Cost of war
Some Western diplomats tell VOA that Putin will stay his hand this time and continue with hybrid warfare and cycles of escalation and de-escalation, which present him with more opportunities to roil and divide Western allies. They note the foreign risks he’s courted to date have been limited. His military foray in Libya has been disguised by using mercenaries, and in Syria he mainly restricted Russian intervention to airstrikes, deploying ground forces sparingly, thereby minimizing Russian casualties.
Other diplomats worry Putin may see this as his best chance to rectify what he sees as historical slights by the West and to restore Russia’s dominant role in central and eastern Europe. It will all come down to whether he is a rash gambler, who wants to wager on one big win, or a calculated risk-taker prepared to notch up incremental wins, they say.
Western leaders are trying to increase the price of war for Russia — economically and in terms of Russian casualties. Some of Washington’s European NATO partners are joining in supplying Ukraine with more lethal weaponry that could be used in an insurgency, if Russia invades.
Putin was in his 30s and 40s when Russia waged a costly and ultimately unsuccessful nine-year counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan in the 1990s, seen by many scholars as a contributing factor to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This week, Britain’s Boris Johnson cited what befell Russia in Afghanistan, warning publicly that an invasion of Ukraine would be “disastrous” for Russia.
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«Це буде друга розмова президентів у січні й третя за два місяці»
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Активісти висловили своє незадоволення побудовою газопроводу «Північний потік-2» і політичною риторикою Німеччини, яка гальмує постачання зброї для України на тлі російської агресії
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«Ми готові втретє довести приналежність артефактів до музейного фонду України вже у Верховному суді Королівства Нідерланди»
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Газопровід, прокладений дном Балтійського моря, вже добудований, проте поки що не працює, очікуючи сертифікації німецькою владою
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A member of Ukraine’s National Guard on Thursday opened fire on his fellow soldiers, killing five people and wounding five more, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. The serviceman was detained by police but his motives remain unclear.
The incident occurred in the city of Dnipro, 500 kilometers (310 miles) southeast of Kyiv on Thursday morning. The soldier, identified by the authorities as Artemiy Ryabchuk, 20, was on guard duty at a military factory and opened fire on his colleagues, fleeing the scene immediately after.
Four soldiers and one civilian died, and five more people sustained injuries. Police detained Ryabchuk shortly after the shooting. It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted him to open fire.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy demanded the authorities thoroughly investigate and analyze the incident.
“I expect law enforcement to fully inform the public about all the circumstances of the crime. Motives of the killer, how [the shooting] became possible — everything should be analyzed as thoroughly as possible,” Zelenskiy said in an online statement, adding that conclusions should be drawn from the incident about personnel in the National Guard.
The shooting took place against the backdrop of soaring tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow has massed an estimated 100,000 troops near its borders with Ukraine, stoking fears that such a buildup might indicate plans to invade its ex-Soviet neighbor.
The Kremlin denied harboring such plans, but demanded security guarantees from the West, including a clause precluding NATO from accepting Ukraine and other former Soviet states as members — a demand the U.S. and NATO have rejected as a nonstarter.
Ukraine’s officials have acknowledged the threat of an invasion, but insisted it was not imminent and accused Russia of fomenting tensions and fear among Ukrainians in order to destabilize the country from within.
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Німецькі прокурори кажуть що росіянин розголошував для розвідки секретну інформацію про європейську програму космічних ракет Ariane
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Кандидатом на здобуття Нобелівської премії миру висунула правозахисне товариство «Меморіал» група парламентаріїв з Естонії
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Військові ЗСУ кажуть, що контролюють ситуацію
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Міністр національної оборони Канади Аніта Ананд, міністр закордонних справ Канади Мелані Джолі приєдналися до прем’єр-міністра Джастіна Трюдо та віцепрем’єр-міністра Христії Фріланд і оголосили про рішення щодо виділення 340 мільйонівдоларів на негайну підтримку України та на продовження операції UNIFIER ще на три роки – до кінця березня 2025, а також збільшення кількості особового складу навчальної місії в Україні до 400 осіб.
«Канада непохитно підтримує суверенітет, територіальну цілісність та незалежність України. Канада стурбована і засуджує загрози Росії та військове нарощування в Україні та навколо неї. Канада залишається відданою дипломатичному розв’язанню і продовжує закликати Росію до деескалації та вступу до змістовного діалогу. Будь-яка подальша агресія з боку Росії матиме серйозні наслідки, і Канада продовжує співпрацювати з союзниками та партнерами над скоординованою відповіддю. Сьогоднішнє оголошення демонструє непохитну відданість Канади Україні та її народу через цей посилений внесок у допомогу у їх обороноздатності», – йдеться в офіційному повідомленні уряду Канади.
Ця посилена підтримка допоможе Україні зміцнити її безпеку та здатність захищатися від низки загроз, прокоментував міністр оборони України Олексій Резніков
«Дякуємо канадському народу та Уряду за непохитну підтримку Збройних сил України у протистоянні російській загрозі. Обмін розвідувальною інформацією, допомога в проведенні кібероперацій та засоби індивідуального захисту значно посилять можливості українського війська у стримуванні агресора», – сказав Резніков.
За даними Міноборони України, з 2015 року канадські війська провели понад 600 курсів, навчаючи майже 33 тисяч українських військовослужбовців і представників сектору безпеки низці тактичних і передових військових навичок. Повідомляється, що уряд Канади також оголосив про створення оперативної групи на базі Global Affairs Canada для подальшої координації зусиль федеральних відомств у підтримці миру та безпеки в Україні.
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Australia has offered to provide additional liquefied natural gas to Europe, should Russia decide to cut off energy supplies as tensions rise over Ukraine.
As tensions over Ukraine grow between Russia and the West, there are mounting fears that Moscow could reduce or shut down the gas it supplies to Europe.
The European Union is already short of gas after the easing of COVID-19 restrictions put huge demands on depleted stocks. The EU depends on Russia for around a third of its gas supplies and could need alternative sources as fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine escalate.
Australia is one of the world’s leading producers of liquefied natural gas or LNG and is prepared to boost its exports to European countries.
Trade Minister Dan Tehan said in a statement Thursday that Australia was “ready to support our friends and allies in the current challenging and complex, geostrategic environment.”
Tony Wood, Energy Program director at the Grattan Institute, an Australian research organization, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that Australia was well-placed to help.
“Australia, the United States and Qatar together supply about 50% of the world’s LNG as shipped natural gas, whereas what Russia provides, obviously, is via pipeline,” he said. “But there is some flexibility there. So, what is happening now is that they are looking to see if they can get supplies from elsewhere. The U.S. is trying to coordinate some of that, and some Australian gas has already been used to help supplement the problem at the moment, and, of course, it could get worse if the situation in Ukraine gets worse.”
Russia’s gas exports to Europe are mostly pumped through pipelines that go through Ukraine or other Eastern European nations. Moscow has insisted that the Ukrainian system was dilapidated and has accused its neighbor of stealing gas.
Analysts have said that Russia could be using tensions over Ukraine to promote its plan for a new gas pipeline to Germany that bypasses Poland and Ukraine.
The Australian government has also urged its citizens to leave Ukraine immediately, as Russian troops gather on the border and the threat of an invasion grows.
The government has estimated there are about 1,400 Australians in Ukraine. Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, said Tuesday the advice to leave was “a cautious and prudent step because the security situation is unpredictable.”
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Міністерство закордонних справ закликало «іноземних партнерів утримуватися від кроків у публічному просторі, які нагнітають інформаційне поле і розхитують суспільство»
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the ball is now in Russia’s court after the U.S. hand delivered its written response to Moscow’s stated security concerns over NATO and Ukraine. As VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, Blinken made clear there will be no change to NATO’s open-door policy to new members, as Russia had demanded.
Producer: Kimberlyn Weeks
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Here’s a look at what U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top diplomats have been doing this week:
US, Russia, Ukraine
Following consultations with various European partners as well as Ukraine, the United States and NATO provided written responses to Moscow addressing Russia’s renewed security demands — the latest moves in diplomatic maneuvering aimed at heading off armed conflict.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan delivered the document in person Wednesday to Russia’s Foreign Ministry. Separately, NATO transmitted to Russia its own responses regarding European security in a document described by officials as a few pages in length.
US Responds to Russia’s Security Demands, Renewing Call for Diplomacy
Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman assessed that China’s hosting of the Winter Olympics early next month was a factor in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculation of military actions against Ukraine.
“We all are aware that the Beijing Olympics begin on February 4 — the opening ceremony — and Putin is expected to be there,” Sherman said. “I think that probably President Xi Jinping would not be ecstatic if Putin chose that moment to invade Ukraine. So, that may affect his timing and his thinking.”
On Sunday, the State Department ordered the departure of eligible family members from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. direct-hire employees amid the continued threat of Russian military action against Ukraine. The State Department also asked U.S. citizens in Ukraine to consider departing the country via commercial or other privately available transportation options.
US Orders Departure of Family Members of Ukraine Embassy Staff
Burkina Faso
The State Department said it was watching closely “the fluid situation” in Burkina Faso, where a military junta ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kabore. But the U.S. said it was “too soon” to officially characterize the events in Burkina Faso as a coup.
“We call for the immediate release of President Kabore and other government officials, and for members of the security forces to respect Burkina Faso’s constitution and civilian leadership. We urge all sides in this fluid situation to remain calm and to seek dialogue as a means to resolve grievances,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said this week during a press briefing.
Burkina Faso Soldiers Say They Deposed President
US-Iran
The United States warned Iran was just weeks from developing the capacity to make a nuclear weapon. The alarm came amid indirect negotiations between the two countries seeking a mutual return to compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal.
“[Iran] is getting to the point where its breakout time, the time it would take to produce fissile material for a bomb, is getting down to a matter of a few weeks,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a virtual event Monday. How the U.S. and its allies would deal with the risks will be decided soon, Blinken said, adding that “given what Iran is doing, we can’t allow this to go on.”
As Iran Nears Uranium Breakout Capacity, US Mulls Bomb-Making Scenarios
Human trafficking
On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department released its annual “Trafficking in Persons Report.” Blinken called for other countries to improve “collective efforts to comprehensively address human trafficking,” as the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem.
State Department Releases Annual Trafficking in Persons Report
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США відкриті до діалогу, але «ясно дають зрозуміти, що є основні принципи, які ми прагнемо підтримувати і захищати»
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У НАТО відмовилися зобов’язатись не надавати членства Україні, як цього хоче Росія
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Сергій Гармаш заявив, що від пропозиції Туреччини відмовилися представники підтримуваних Москвою угруповань і самої Росії
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