por Francisco Correa Villalobos,

Embajador de México en retiro

 La cuestión de Ucrania la crecido en complejidad y se ha formado una masa crítica a la que, para obtener una visión real y objetiva de las intenciones de los principales actores, de sus iniciativas, de sus actos y de las repercusiones de la crisis en países como el nuestro, es necesario acercarse apartando las máscaras de democracia, libertad, derechos humanos, etc., que ocultan los verdaderos intereses en juego. 

La desintegración de la Unión Soviética no significó para Estados Unidos y Europa Occidental la derrota definitiva de un enemigo. Rusia siguió en posesión de una fuerza militar importante y de un inmenso arsenal de armas atómicas y de proyectiles intercontinentales que se percibía en estos países como una amenaza latente. Nada presagiaba un resurgimiento de una amenaza militar rusa a mediano o largo plazo pero era vital mantenerla bajo un estado de dominación militar, de reducirla a un nivel de potencia de segundo o tercer orden, de privarla de una posible recuperación económica y de convertirla en un apéndice de la prosperidad europea sin incorporarla a ésta. De esta manera, Estados Unidos podía garantizarse a sí mismo la preeminencia mundial infinita y los países europeos aspirar a una influencia rediviva fuera de Europa como potencias sub-imperiales.

La caída de la Unión Soviética provocó muchas especulaciones sobre la utilidad de la OTAN y sobre su objetivo post-guerra fría, pero en realidad la alianza atlántica siguió creciendo y aunque los presupuestos militares disminuyeron, la organización rápidamente se extendió a las antiguas repúblicas soviéticas del Báltico y a los ex-satélites de Europa Oriental. No obstante, aparte de la estandarización del material, el entrenamiento y la sombrilla del artículo 5 de su carta, la OTAN se abstuvo de instalar bases extranjeras en esos países por un compromiso asumido con Rusia. La independencia de las repúblicas de Asia Central, por el contrario, atrajo inmediatamente el interés norteamericano de establecer en ellas bases militares, mientras Rusia las equilibraba con las propias en los mismos países.

 Mas para alcanzar el objetivo respecto de Rusia, el arma política, militar y económica más importante con que contaban Estados Unidos y Europa era Ucrania. Dotada de una sofisticada industria militar y de una riquísima agricultura, la independencia de Ucrania fue el primer gran logro que alcanzaron los países occidentales para relegar a un nivel inferior a Rusia, impulsando a la antigua clase política comunista ucraniana, heredera privada de los bienes públicos soviéticos, aliada ahora con grupos nacionalistas de derecha con fuertes raigambres rusófobas, fascistas y anti-semitas.

 Con una intensa y hábil diplomacia, Moscú obtuvo seguridades de Estados Unidos y Europa que Ucrania no se integraría a la Unión Europea ni a la OTAN. Ello no quería decir que éstos no cesarían en su empeño. Rusia aprovechó un cierto vacío de poder económico y financiero, que temporalmente dejaron los países occidentales, para fortalecer sus vínculos con la Ucrania independiente y reafirmar su influencia. Para ello debía, en primer lugar reasumir el control gubernamental de la producción y exportación de gas y petróleo, privatizados en el caos de la desintegración, y convertirlo en un arma presión. En segundo lugar, debía devenir, como sucedió, en el principal factor de estabilidad económica del nuevo país con substanciales subsidios en los precios de exportación y con créditos ventajosos, cuyos beneficios no siempre se filtraron a la población, sino que se quedaron en los bolsillos de una clase política corrupta. Según datos contenidos en la carta que Rusia dirigió a los países europeos que importan gas y petróleo de Rusia, sólo por concepto de gas, Ucrania ha recibido subsidios por un total de 35.4 billones de dólares.

 En los últimos años, los países europeos intensificaron sus esfuerzos para inducir a Ucrania a participar en el área económica y comercial europea mediante un acuerdo de asociación, como un primer paso a su ulterior incorporación a la Unión Europea. Ese paso hubiese representado el fin de la influencia rusa sobre Ucrania, el preludio de la entrada de ésta a la OTAN y a la ineluctable humillación de Rusia como una potencia de segundo orden, con todos los consecuentes reacomodos políticos tanto al interior de Rusia como en Asia Central y el Lejano Oriente.

 Un hecho aparentemente insignificante tuvo consecuencias desastrosas. El presidente ucraniano Viktor Yanukovich pidió a los negociadores de Bruselas una cantidad para aceptar el plan de asociación con la Unión Europea, pero cuando el gobierno ruso incrementó la oferta, los países occidentales aprovecharon la frustración de los grupos de derecha para provocar manifestaciones violentas en la plaza de Maidan, que fueron presentadas fuera de toda proporción en los medios occidentales. La subsecretaria de Estado, Victoria Nuland, el embajador de Estados Unidos, los ministros de relaciones exteriores de Alemania, Grecia y Rumania no tuvieron empacho en mostrarse repartiendo alimentos y departiendo con los manifestantes. En febrero,  Angela Merkel estaba recibiendo en la cancillería al escogido por Occidente para ocupar el puesto de primer ministro , Arsenyi Yatsenuk.

 El asalto al palacio gubernamental, la huída del presidente Yanukovich y la toma del gobierno por la derecha empresarial  constituía el peor escenario para Rusia, que debió adelantarse a una casi segura incorporación de Ucrania a la OTAN, salvaguardando la casi totalidad de la flota en el Mar Negro y el Mediterráneo con la anexión de Crimea.

 La anexión fue un innegable triunfo tanto interno como internacional para Putin,  porque la opinión pública de su país se volcó a su favor al devolverle la dignidad y la confianza perdidas con la desintegración de la URSS y porque mostró al mundo las limitaciones de la proyección del poder militar y económico de Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea.

 Tales limitaciones son, sin embargo, relativas porque los costos de un conflicto militar con Rusia hubiesen sido, y lo son aun, colosales y fuera de toda proporción con los escasísimos beneficios de una derrota del enemigo. En todo caso, dichas limitaciones no son generales sino que sólo se aplicarían a un contrincante tan poderoso como Rusia o como China, pero no para otros países. En otras palabras, la crisis ha demostrado que la preeminencia de Estados Unidos se detiene en las fronteras de Rusia, algo que ya existía antes de ésta. Lo que no está definido – y éste es el meollo de la crisis- es si tal preeminencia se extiende a las antiguas repúblicas de la URSS, o sea, si hay una aceptación tácita de una esfera de influencia rusa.

 En el caso de Ucrania, esa esfera de influencia tiene un valor diferente para uno y otro. Mientras que para Rusia representa una cuestión de seguridad nacional y el posible ascenso a un nivel más alto de relevancia e influencia internacional, para Estados Unidos significa la reafirmación de su preeminencia mundial y la prevención de posibles grietas en esa preeminencia causadas por la misma crisis.

 La crisis ha proyectado a Alemania como el factor más importante y ha elevado su relevancia política en el mundo como no la había tenido desde la Segunda GuerraMundial.   A fines de 2013 Angela Merkel había manifestado su convicción de que Alemania debía jugar un papel más importante en la política internacional  y  ya para entonces la burocracia de Bruselas había sido fuertemente impulsada  para traer a Ucrania más cerca de la Unión Europea. Poco más adelante, Frank Steinmeier , el ministro alemán de relaciones exteriores,  con  el apoyo de Grecia y Rumanía elaboró un plan para facilitar una salida digna de Yanukovitz mediante unas elecciones en mayo.  Victoria Nuland envió al demonio el proyecto (fuck the European Union) y Estados Unidos aceleró el golpe.  

Alemania y Estados Unidos coincidían en el objetivo, debilitar a Rusia,  pero no en los medios de alcanzarlo.  Presumiblemente,  Merkel esperaba que su plan no concitaría una reacción violenta de Putin, lo que dejaría a Alemania como la potencia más importante de los  Urales al Atlántico.

Pero la inesperada jugada de Rusia planteaba el riesgo para Alemania que el factor militar de parte de Occidente ocupará el primer plano de la crisis, porque al quedar toda Europa  sometida al interés estratégico de Estados Unidos, se reduciría su  su espacio de maniobra.  De ahí que Merkel haya desechado abruptmente al belicista Secretario General de la OTAN,  Anders Rasmussen; que haya aprovechado al máximo las  limitaciones a la proyección del poder  de Estados Unidos para convertir a Alemania en el factor más importante de presión no militar contra Rusia y que se haya convertido en el único puente de comunicación de alto nivel con Putin. 

La canciller alemana ha tenido que mantener un equilibrio muy delicado entre sus compromisos con Obama,  la resistencia de industriales y financieros alemanes a aplicar medidas restrictivas contra Rusia y las reservas del Partido Socialista, socio de la coalición gubernamental. Dos prominentes ex-cancilleres socialistas Helmut Schimdt y Gerhard Schroeder han expresado su opisición a las sanciones y éste último, presidente de Nord-Stream, que construye un nuevo gasoducto de Rusia a Europa, celebró sus 70 años con Putin en medio de la crisis. México Internacional  reproducirá próximamente un reportaje de Der Spiegel sobre los intereses de grandes consorcios alemanes en Rusia.

 Ninguna de las partes quiere llevar el conflicto a un enfrentamiento militar directo. Como se dice, todo mundo sabe como empieza una guerra, pero nadie sabe como va a terminar. Rusia ha concentrado tropas cerca de la frontera de Ucrania pero muy lejos de las fronteras con miembros de la OTAN, mientras que Estados Unidos ha adoptado medidas puramente simbólicas para salvar su imagen y calmar a los gobiernos de Europa del este: seis aviones y 450 hombres en los tres países bálticos y 150 soldados y quince aviones en Polonia, además de ocho controladores de cohetes antimisiles Patriot, ya estacionados desde antes de la crisis.

 Ha habido un claro auto-control al nivel de fuerzas convencionales de parte de ambos lados, pero éste no se ha manifestado en las operaciones encubiertas. El director de la CIA, en su visita a Kiev a mediados de abril, llevó todo un inventario de material de comunicaciones, armamento y entrenamiento para reprimir un levantamiento armado de la oposición ruso parlante en el este del país o para enfrentar una posible invasión rusa. Como dijo Leslie Gelb, la idea es de enfrentar a Rusia a otro Afganistán, pero lo que el analista norteamericano dejó voluntariamente de lado es que las diferencias entre ucranianos no son claras ni profundas, como lo demuestra la baja moral de los efectivos militares con el alto número de deserciones y la facilidad con que los soldados enviados a reprimir a los ocupantes de edificios públicos entregan a éstos sus armas,  helicópteros y transportes blindados. Sin embargo, debe tenerse en cuenta la vulnerabilidad de Rusia en un conflicto al que puedan fluir islamistas chechenios y otros mercenarios, financiados por gobiernos de países árabes aliados de Estados Unidos deseosos de debilitar a Rusia como principal apoyo de Bashar El Assad.|

Sin el apoyo de la CIA y el FBI, como lo reportó Bild am Sontag el 4 de mayo, el gobierno de facto en Kiev difícilmente hubiera lanzado la ofensiva militar sobre el este de Ucrania.

 La crisis ha demostrado que, una vez descartado el uso y la amenaza de la fuerza de uno contra otro y las acciones de provocación, las opciones norteamericanas son muy limitadas y que Estados Unidos debe apoyarse en los países europeos para presionar a Rusia económicamente de manera efectiva, algo que difícilmente podrá adoptarse a nivel de la Unión Europea, salvo si se trata de medidas prácticamente simbólicas. El 25 de abril, la Unión Europea y Estados Unidos acordaron aplicar medidas financieras restrictivas a otros 15 ciudadanos y empresas rusas para un total de 55.

Ciertamente que la fuga de capitales golondrinos, tanto nacionales como extranjeros, ha tenido un efecto en el valor del rublo, pero las inversiones extranjeras en la exploración y explotación del petróleo y gas del Ártico no han sufrido merma y las grandes empresas petroleras mundiales han sido las principales y más poderosas cabilderas contra la adopción de sanciones económicas contra Rusia. Según Platts, la producción de las grandes empresas petroleras occidentales ha disminuido al igual que su participación en el mercado global, lo que las ha llevado a invertir agresivamente en la exploración y explotación de nuevos yacimientos en el Ártico, para hacer frente a la competencia de pequeñas y medianas empresas que están explotando el petróleo y gas shale en Estados Unidos.

 Pese al triunfalismo que Obama despliega en sus conferencias de prensa, no puede ocultar que Europa tiene la llave de la presión económica y que no es fácil alcanzar un acuerdo al interior de ella. Que Estados Unidos esté investigando el monto y la localización de la fortuna personal de Putin muestra la frustración ante la ineficiencia de las armas económicas con que cuenta.

 Rusia ha echado mano del arma energética en represalia por la firma del acuerdo de asociación de Ucrania con la Unión Europea, para volcar la presión europea sobre el gobierno ucraniano al advertir que, si éste no paga su adeudo de más de dos años de gas, tendrá que cortar el suministro y perjudicar a 18 países europeos que reciben el mismo producto por los mismos gasoductos. En otras palabras, lo que Rusia quería decir es que, ante la imposibilidad de Ucrania para saldar su adeudo, Europa debe pagar la cuenta para no ver cortado su propio gas. Pocos días después de que Rusia diera a conocer la carta con esta advertencia, el presidente de Gasprom declaró que Rusia no tenía la intención de cortar el gas, muy probablemente para restar fuerza a las iniciativas de algunos países europeos de buscar alternativas a corto plazo a la dependencia del gas ruso y para no comprometer en un futuro cercano el flujo de capital que representa la venta del hidrocarburo.

 La carta de advertencia, que se reproduce en México Internacional, contenía la propuesta de una conferencia internacional para discutir este problema  que, a convocatoria de la Unión Europea, se reunió el 2 de mayo entre Rusia, Ucrania y la UE  sin llegar a ningún ac uerdo, por lo que se programaron reuniones subsecuentes. No obsante, en esa reunión Ucrania y la UE plantearon la necesidad de establecer un precio único para el gas ruso que adquieren. Por su parte, Ucrania ha buscado desesperadamente nueva fuentes de aprovisionamiento de gas, que encontró en cantidades limitadas en Polonia, Hungría y Eslovaquia. En efecto, utilizando en parte antiguos gasoductos de la era soviética y, en parte, reenviando gas ruso en flujo de reversa (reverse flow) estos países podrían enviar para 2015, si el estado de las instalaciones lo permite, el equivalente a una tercera parte de los requerimientos ucranianos del energético.  Rusia ha objetado este procedimiento como violatorio de los contratos que tiene con esos países,  por lo que no es absolutamente seguro que Ucrania pueda recibir gas de esa manera. Mientras, Ucrania plantea que acudirá a un tribunal de arbitraje alegando que Rusia está obligada a mantener el precio preferencial que rigió hasta hace dos meses, es decir, el 50% del precio actual.

En un reciente foro en el conservador International Institute of Strategic Studies se manifestó que fuere cual fuese el desenlace y los arreglos de solución del problema, Ucrania seguirá dependiendo del gas ruso para la casi totalidad de sus necesidades energéticas.

El desenlace de este vasto y complejo ajedrez internacional de múltiples tableros sólo podrá resolverse en el tablero interior de Ucrania. Los improvisados dirigentes de facto y los imprudentes parlamentarios tienen una responsabilidad que rebasa su escasa competencia política. El desafortunado intento de la Rada de eliminar el idioma ruso como segunda lengua oficial fue el detonante de la protesta en Ucrania del este y sur y el fundamento ostensible de su demanda de federalización que, en otro ingenuo acto político, el primer ministro Arsenyi Yatsenuk recogió para enviarla al estudio de una comisión legislativa que deberá rendir sus conclusiones en una fecha lejana del mes de octubre, en violación de las obligaciones asumidas en el acuerdo de las cuatro potencias del 17 de abril.

 El acuerdo alcanzado el 17 de abril en Ginebra sólo abrió un compás de espera, pero del cual ninguna parte espera mucho de la otra. De aquí a las elecciones del 26 de mayo veremos muchos movimientos de provocación y de autocontrol en el tablero militar con respuestas en otros tableros. Todo parece apuntar a que Estados Unidos, induciendo al gobierno ucraniano a una provocación, espera una intervención militar rusa, a la que no opondrá su propia fuerza militar, sino que optará por un conflicto por interpósito contendiente, como lo hizo en Nicaragua y en Afganistán en los años 80s y en Siria recientemente, para debilitar a Rusia.

 Por su parte, Rusia, si bien podría avasallar militarmente a Ucrania en unos días, parece haber optado por mantener desde una cierta distancia un nivel de inestabilidad que haga imposible unas elecciones tranquilas y un gobierno con credibilidad, lo que a su vez obstaculizaría el cumplir con las condiciones para ser miembro de la Unión Europea y detendría los intentos de incorporar a Ucrania a la OTAN.

 El conflicto no tiene una solución a mediano plazo. Todo indica que el país se hundirá en una guerra civil alimentada desde fuera a la manera de los conflictos en los países subdesarrollados durante la Guerra Fría. Los grupos paramilitares de derecha, como el Sector Derecha y el organizado por el billonario gobernador de Dnipropretovsk, Igor Kolomoyskyi, marcan el preludio de ese conflicto.

 Tenemos pues un conflicto geopolítico para definir esferas de influencia que tiene reverberaciones en múltiples sectores de la política y la economía. Para Rusia se trata de una cuestión de seguridad y dignidad nacionales. Para Estados Unidos es un conflicto que pone en riesgo su preeminencia mundial.

 

 

Los ministros de relaciones exteriores de Estados Unidos, Rusia, Ucrania y la Unión Europea se reunieron en Ginebra para acordar medidas paran desescalar el conflicto en Ucrania.  Los cuatro llegaron a un equilibrado acuerdo el 17 de abril que incluye  compromisos para todos los países participantes que éstos acordaron cumplir de buena fe.  En la práctica ésto no ha sido así.  México Internacional  reproduce aquí el texto íntegro del acuerdo.

 

Following is a joint statement on Thursday by the four parties — the United States, the European Union, Russia and Ukraine — meeting in Geneva to discuss the continuing conflict in Ukraine:

The Geneva meeting on the situation in Ukraine agreed on initial concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens.

All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism.

All illegal armed groups must be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.

Amnesty will be granted to protesters and to those who have left buildings and other public places and surrendered weapons, with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes.

It was agreed that the O.S.C.E. Special Monitoring Mission should play a leading role in assisting Ukrainian authorities and local communities in the immediate implementation of these de-escalation measures wherever they are needed most, beginning in the coming days. The U.S., E.U. and Russia commit to support this mission, including by providing monitors.

The announced constitutional process will be inclusive, transparent and accountable. It will include the immediate establishment of a broad national dialogue, with outreach to all of Ukraine’s regions and political constituencies, and allow for the consideration of public comments and proposed amendments.

The participants underlined the importance of economic and financial stability in Ukraine and would be ready to discuss additional support as the above steps are implemented.

A medida que la situación se deteriora cada día en Ucrania, resulta más urgente tener una visión lo más objetiva posible de las posiciones de los principales protagonistas. La prensa y los medios occidentales, y por añadidura los medios mexicanos, no se han caracterizado por ofrecer una visión equilibrada que permita a sus lectores y telespectadores conocer objetivamente los puntos de vista de los antagonistas de Estados Unidos. Con la publicación de algunos documentos rusos, México Internacional ha querido cubrir ese vacio para sus lectores. En esta ocasión, reproducimos una entrevista a la agencia RT con el Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Rusia, Sergei Lavrov sobre los sucesos posteriores al acuerdo de Ginebra del 17 de abril y sobre el estilo de negociar del gobierno de Estados Unidos.

 A este último respecto, cabe señalar que dicho estilo es ampliamente conocido desde hace muchos lustros entre los delegados ante Naciones Unidas como “táctica del salami”, y  consiste en obtener el mayor número de concesiones en una negociación y al final de ésta reservarse su posición inicial o plantear nuevas demandas. El Embajador Alfonso García Robles contrarrestaba esta práctica norteamericana introduciendo sus objetivos en varias partes de los textos de base de negociación, de manera que el final de la misma él tenía un párrafo o quizá una oración que reflejaba su tesis y que después le servía de punto de arranque para negociaciones subsecuentes o bien para el lanzamiento de iniciativas de más largo alcance.

 

Lavrov to RT: Americans are ‘running the show’ in Ukraine

April 23, 2014 16:51

RT photo

As the standoff in the eastern Ukraine deteriorates into violence it’s up to world powers to step in and calm things down. Despite tough talk from Washington, the US, EU, Russia and Ukraine have managed to reach a framework to peace in Geneva. But will it be enough to avert a civil war? Sophie asks the Russian Foreign minister himself – Sergey Lavrov is on Sophie&Co today.

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Sophie Shevardnadze: Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign minister, it’s great to have you on our show today.

Sergey Lavrov: Thank you for the invitation.

SS: So, just the other day Joe Biden on his visit to Kiev said that time is short for Russia to make progress on its commitments made in Geneva. What is expected of Russia?

SL: Well, it’s difficult to say because I discuss this almost daily with John Kerry. And frankly the American colleagues chose to put all the blame on Russia, including the origin of the conflict and including the steps which must be taken. They accuse us of having Russian troops, Russian agents in the east and South of Ukraine. They say that it is for the Russians only to give orders and the buildings illegally occupied would be liberated and that it is for the Russians to make sure that the East and South of Ukraine stops putting forward the demands for the federalization and the referendum and so on and so forth. This is absolute…you know…switching the goal post if you wish. In Geneva we all agreed that there must be reciprocal approach to any illegitimate action in Ukraine, be it in Kiev, be it in the West, be it in the East, be it in the South. And the people who started the process of illegitimate actions must step back first. It is absolutely abnormal due to any norms in a European city that Maidan is still occupied, that the buildings in Kiev are still occupied and in some other cities, that those who put on fire the buildings belonging to Communist party headquarters in Kiev, the buildings belonging to the Trade Union headquarters are not even under investigation. I don’t even want to mention the sniper cases because everyone forgot about those snipers. And we only hear that “Let’s concentrate on eliminating terrorist threats in the East and in the South”.

Read the full transcript

So in Geneva we all agreed that there must be end of any violence. Next morning or next afternoon Turchinov declared almost a state of emergency and ordered the army to shoot at the people if the people are engaged in peaceful protests. In Geneva we agreed that there must be total rejection of extremists and the Right Sector is still very active, and after Geneva the Right Sector staged provocations killing several people in the vicinity of Slavyansk during Easter Sunday. So nothing which was agreed in Geneva and which certainly is for the authorities in Kiev to start implementing was done by them. Yes, they introduced a draft law on amnesty. But our reading of this law indicates that this is not for political prisoners. Yes, they announced a pause in what they call “counter terrorist operation”. But now that Joe Biden visited Kiev this counter terrorist operation was declared in the active phase again. Well, it’s quite telling that they chose a moment of vice-president of the United States visit to announce the resumption of this operation because the launching of this operation happened immediately after the John Brennan’s visit to Kiev. So I don’t have any reasons not to believe that the Americans are running the show in a very close way.

SS: Well, you have hold on John Kerry to actually put pressure on the government in Kiev and on its behavior. But does it really mean that you can see America has decisive influence on the country?

SL: I think this is absolutely the case. Not on the country. On the regime which took power in Kiev. They have I think overwhelming influence. They act in much more open way without any scruples compared to the Europeans. Europeans try to be a bit more subtle. And the fact that…you know, there are so many reports about the role of the CIA in analyzing the situation and in being present in Ukraine, including the building of the Security Council of the Ukrainian State, occupyinga floor. Then there are numerous reports which were revived recently on what was the role of the American embassy during the events in Maidan – direct interaction and communication with the activists who were armed and who were planning the actions like storming the buildings and other illegal acts.

All this has not been denied in the way which would be persuasive. And, yes, when you get daily phone calls from John Kerry telling you: “You must, you must, you must” and when you understand how many thousand kilometers the United States is away from Ukraine and then you see how agitated they are about seeing their sponsored people not really delivering on the things which are obvious then you cannot avoid the impression that they are running the show very much.

SS: But what about Russia? Well, I know Russia has reiterated many times that it doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the government in Kiev, but nevertheless diplomatic meetings are held on high levels in Geneva, I remember in the Hague, the meeting of the Foreign Ministers as well, does Moscow have any leverage over Kiev?

SL: Not over Kiev. No, not at all.

SS: What about the Eastern Ukraine?

SL: In the East the people revolted after several months of total neglect of their interests. And when they saw what happened in Kiev through Maidan, through the Right Sector, other extremists, the sniper fire killing dozens of people, then immediately all those who were againstthe Yanukovich government were granted amnesty, which is not happening now to the people who just engage in political activities in the east and in the south. So, yes, we see what were the reasons for the revolt in the east and in the south. They just don’t want a repetition what happened in Kiev and what was attempted in Crimea, by the way, and these people, of course they want to be friendly with Russia, they have many Russian relatives, they listen very carefully to what Russia says. But these people are not puppets. We cannot just guarantee that they will be ready to take for granted whatever promises they hear from Kiev. They are fed up with words, they need real deeds. The regime must withdraw the order to use the army against the people, the regime must liberate political prisoners, they must start doing what they committed themselves to on 21^st February signing the agreement, which said “surrender illegal arms”, they must start disarming the Right Sector and they must stop just saying “we will invite the regions to a constitutional reform process”.

They must sit down with them and instead of going abroad – you know, I heard that Yatsenyuk is going to the Vatican, I think the better place to go for him would be south. When he went there a week ago he only met with the people whom he himself appointed, he never got to the people who were protesting . And that’s where the current authorities in Kiev need to be now, If they really pretend to represent the entire country.

SS: But here’s the thing – people in the West, and I’m not even talking about the American political establishment, just people who watch TV – for them what’s going on in the south and in the east of the country right now, is very similar to what was going on in Maidan, because they see self-defense forces, like they were seeing the Right Sector in Maidan, chaos, people occupying government buildings, not willing to put down arms…now, they are saying that these people are pro-Russian, so why Russia is not so outraged of what’s going on there, I mean the chaos, like in Maidan, why doesn’t their influence calm them down?

SL: I don’t think we can say that we are negligent of their problems, we are in solidarity with them, we insist politically that their interests must be taken into account. That’s why we went to Geneva, that’s why we negotiated the paper which demands an equal treatment of whoever is engaged in illegal activities on the understanding that the government, the interim government whatever they call themselves, must set the example and they must stop the illegal things which continue to happen in Kiev and in other parts of the country, not other than east and south. And yes, in the east and the south, the leaders, elected by the people said that they would be ready to surrender arms, to vacate the buildings, provided the government stops illegal orders to use the army and does what it is committed itself to do with the Right Sector, other extremists and with the buildings which have been taken over and still are occupied in Kiev. You know what, the Americans said, Victoria Nuland, I think, when we insisted on the Geneva agreement to be implemented in full, beginning with the liberation of the buildings in Kiev – she said those building were occupied legally because the Kiev authorities issued a license to the people who occupied the buildings and they now are legal owners or legally present in these buildings. It is absolutely unbelievable that they can seriously put forward such arguments.

SS: So, you’re saying the agreement that was reached on the 21^st February by the Western powers was kind of ignored by those who signed it. Now you’re saying that Geneva agreement is also being ignored…

SL: Absolutely!

SS: So what’s the point of all these agreement if you can’t come to a practical solution to this problem?

SL: The point of the February 21st agreement was to have Yanokovich sign up to commit himself not to use the police – which he did; to commit himself not to declare a state of emergency – which he did and that was basically an act of capitulation. Everything he committed himself to do – has been done. People say that he did not sign the law, bringing back the previous constitution, but this law was promulgated anyway, so what ever was needed by the opposition was done. Whatever the opposition committed itself to do – they never did. And the Geneva agreement, the Geneva meeting was actually designed to try and bring the process back on track, including the need to start the constitutional process, with full involvement of all regions. Yes the deal has been struck, but it is not being honored by those who have to make the first step.

SS: So they have to make the first step?

SL: Absolutely.

SS: Russia cannot pressure these self-defense forces to put down arms unless…

SL: Yes, and we do not have any moral authority to pressure the East or the South to do something unilaterally in front of the army, being ordered to go against them, in front of the Right Sector who should have been, must have been disarmed long ago and in the face of the political prisoners who continue to be taken.

SS: You’ve also said many times that Russia has no intention of moving its troops inside Ukraine, and just recently, Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s press-secretary confirmed that there is a military contingent that is reinforced on the Russian-Ukrainian border; There must be a worst-case scenario in which this contingent will be used?

SL: If we are attacked, we would certainly respond. If our interests, our legitimate interests, the interests of Russians have been attacked directly, like they were in South Ossetia for example, I do not see any other way but to respond in full accordance with international law. Russian citizens being attacked is an attack against the Russian Federation. The only thing I would like to highlight at this stage is that the Russian troops are on the Russian territory. The request for inspections under the so called Vienna Document of 2011 and under the treaty of the Open Sky, they have all been granted. The inspectors visited the areas of deployment of the troops who are participating in training exercises. Planes flew over the areas where the exercises and no one who participated in the inspections, including the Americans, Ukrainians and Europeans ever brought up any fact that would indicate that Russia was engaged in some dangerous military activity. So we are on our territory and we are doing nothing which is prohibited by any obligation of us. The Ukrainian troops are also on their territory, but the difference is the fact that they have the order from Turchinov to use weapons against civilians and this is a criminal order.

SS: You’ve mentioned John Kerry many times during this interview, and it does seem like the two of you, regardless of diplomatic differences, communicate and see each other more than you see your families. Do you feel like on a personal level this is someone that you can come to an agreement with?

SL: We came to an agreement on Syria, we came to an agreement on Iran, we came to an agreement on Ukraine in Geneva on the 17th April; personally we have very good chemistry but we also understand there are superiors and advisors which sometimes does not help. But, I told Kerry several times that we do not believe it is a real partnership – if they speak about a partnership – when in fact whatever issue we discuss, they try to put the onus on us completely. And by the way, had it not been Ukraine, then it would have been something else, like it was Iran, originally, when the Americans were saying “you must.. you must.. you must…’ If only the Russians tells the Iranian’s, if only Russia doesn’t sell weapons to the Iranians – they would cry ‘uncle’ and everything would be fine, this nuclear issue would be resolved.”Then Syria happened and they were telling us – they still do – “if only Russia tells Assad to go then everything would fall into place, democracy would prevail and so on and so forth.” So the Iranian issue depends on Russia alone, Syria depends on Russia alone – they also say Russia and Iran. Now Ukraine depends entirely on Russia. I would say, it is an absolute ‘egoistic’ and ‘unrealistic’ approach and an attempt to hide your own responsibility.

By the way, speaking about Syria, they said recently and unfortunately the United Nations spokesman picked up the tune, the Americans said recently that the elections which have been announced for the 3rd June by President Assad, would be illegitimate, because first there must be a transitional governing organ on the basis of a new constitution and so on and so forth. Ok, the Geneva communiqué on Syria did say there must be a transitional governing organ, which would develop constitutional reform and on the basis of this reform there would be general elections. Fine, but the same sequence was mentioned on the Ukrainian crisis, signed on the 21st February. First the government of consent, then the constitutional reform and only after the new constitution is promulgated – elections.The people who staged the coup and toppled the legitimate president, and took power, declared themselves a government, they didn’t speak originally about constitutional reform at all. They said there would be presidential elections on May 25 and the constitutional reform – when we reminded them that this was the obligation and unless they do this the east and the south would not recognize the legitimacy of what is going on – they recalled this obligation but said “this would be done later”. And the West believes that this is entirely legitimate. The same people who say the Syrian presidential elections without constitutional reform would be illegitimate are accepting even today the legitimacy of the May 25 presidential elections in Ukraine without any constitutional reform.

SS: So, you meet a lot of American politicians, besides John Kerry, and the rhetoric from their side is pretty harsh. Do you feel the Americans are ready for a real confrontation with Russia over Ukraine?

SL: Well, I already said that it is not about Ukraine. Ukraine is just one manifestation of the American unwillingness to yield in the geopolitical fight. Americans are not ready to admit that they cannot run the show in each and every part of the globe from Washington alone. They cannot impose ready-made solutions on everyone and they cannot understand, I mean they begin to understand I think, but they still have the instincts that they shouldn’t really take on board what others believe should be done. They are moving, slowly, that’s why we managed to make some compromises on Syrian chemical weapon, on the Iranian nuclear program, the compromise on Ukraine in Geneva, but after a deal they tried to pocket whatever they got and they try not to deliver what they promised to do. Maybe this is a natural manifestation of those who want to get the result that would be in their interests but on Iranian nuclear issue, for example, the deal was very blunt but as the deal started to be implemented, the Americans began to load it with new demands. The missile program of Iranians was never part of the discussions, never. And it was not part of the deal signed in Geneva last November. But as the deal of November started to be implemented, the Americans threw in the missile proliferation problem which could have derailed the process.

On Syria, we signed the deal of chemical disarmament of Syria and the process has been going and still goes very well, there’s a satisfactory assessment by UN personnel participating in the process by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The Americans almost from the first very day started to ring alarm bell, saying that the government is dragging on this, it’s not delivering on its commitments and they were fully ignoring the facts which were the need for the government to get more armed vehicles, which we and the Chinese were helping them with, the need for the people who influenced the armed extremists and jihadists to absolutely control them and not to allow them to stage provocations as the chemical weapons are being moved from storages to the port, and so on and so forth. So every time we sign a deal the Americans start to put the blame for any delay on others or, even worse, they start to throw in new demands which absolutely contradict the reached consensus. So that is what they are doing now on the Geneva agreement on Ukraine, but I do hope very much that they act responsibly and they do not think of their geopolitical initiatives, geopolitical interests, unilateral interests, but they would think about the future of Ukraine which is our biggest neighbor, closest neighbor and the people of which are brothers and sisters to the Russian Federation population. So if we all think about Ukraine and not about who takes it, but about how the Ukrainians themselves want to live, then it shouldn’t be very difficult to help the Ukrainians find the national compromise and national reconciliation.

SS: Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, thank you very much for this interview.

SL: Thank you.

 

 

El conflicto de Ucrania ha crecido en complejidad. Actualmente  confluyen en una masa crítica cuestiones militares, políticas, energéticas, financieras, comerciales que se presentan tanto en el panorama interno como en el internacional, incluyendo la profunda inestabilidad política y económica de ese país, la inexperiencia política de sus dirigentes, la influencia de grupos ucranianos armados de tendencias derechistas, xenófobas y antisemitas, grupos ruso parlantes separatistas , elecciones generales en puerta, etc.

 En un importante giro de uno de los aspectos más relevantes del conflicto, el energético, el Presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, envió el 10 de abril de 2014 una comunicación a los Jefes de Estado o Gobierno de los países a los que Rusia exporta gas a través de Ucrania, o sea, Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia y Herzegovina, Croacia, República Checa, Italia, Francia, Hungría, Alemania, Grecia, Macedonia, Moldova, Polonia, Rumania, Serbia, Eslovaquia, Eslovenia, y Turquía. Dicha carta,  aunque ha motivado fuertes reacciones, sobre todo de Alemania y Estados Unidos,   ha sido  ignorada  por los medios internacionales occidentales .  México  Internacional la reproduce aquí en su integridad.

 

Message from the President of Russia to the leaders of several European countries

April 10, 2014, 23:00

The message reads:

Ukraine’s economy in the past several months has been plummeting. Its industrial and construction sectors have also been declining sharply. Its budget deficit is mounting. The condition of its currency system is becoming more and more deplorable. The negative trade balance is accompanied by the flight of capital from the country. Ukraine’s economy is steadfastly heading towards a default, a halt in production and skyrocketing unemployment.

Russia and the EU member states are Ukraine’s major trading partners. Proceeding from this, at the Russia-EU Summit at the end of January, we came to an agreement with our European partners to hold consultations on the subject of developing Ukraine’s economy, bearing in mind the interests of Ukraine and our countries while forming integration alliances with Ukraine’s participation. However, all attempts on Russia’s part to begin real consultations failed to produce any results.

Instead of consultations, we hear appeals to lower contractual prices on Russian natural gas – prices which are allegedly of a “political” nature. One gets the impression that the European partners want to unilaterally blame Russia for the consequences of Ukraine’s economic crisis.

Right from day one of Ukraine’s existence as an independent state, Russia has supported the stability of the Ukrainian economy by supplying it with natural gas at cut-rate prices. In January 2009, with the participation of the then-premier Yulia Tymoshenko, a purchase-and-sale contract on supplying natural gas for the period of 2009-2019 was signed. That contract regulated questions concerning the delivery of and payment for the product, and it also provided guarantees for its uninterrupted transit through the territory of Ukraine. What is more, Russia has been fulfilling the contract according to the letter and spirit of the document. Incidentally, Ukrainian Minister of Fuel and Energy at that time was Yury Prodan, who today holds a similar post in Kiev’s government.

The total volume of natural gas delivered to Ukraine as was stipulated in that contract during the period of 2009-2014  (first quarter) stands at 147.2 billion cubic meters. Here, I would like to emphasize that the price formula that had been set down in the contract had NOT been altered since that moment. And Ukraine, right up till August 2013, made regular payments for the natural gas in accordance with that formula.

However, the fact that after signing that contract, Russia granted Ukraine a whole string of unprecedented privileges and discounts on the price of natural gas is quite another matter. This applies to the discount stemming from the 2010 Kharkov Agreement, which was provided as advance payment for the future lease payments for the presence of the [Russian] Black Sea Fleet after 2017. This also refers to discounts on the prices for natural gas purchased by Ukraine’s chemical companies. This also concerns the discount granted in December 2013 for the duration of three months due to the critical state of Ukraine’s economy. Beginning with 2009, the  total sum of these discounts stands at 17 billion US dollars. To this, we should add another 18.4 billion US dollars incurred by the Ukrainian side as a minimal take-or-pay fine.

In this manner, during the past four years Russia has been subsidizing Ukraine’s economy by offering slashed natural gas prices worth 35.4 billion US dollars.  In addition, in December 2013, Russia granted Ukraine a loan of 3 billion US dollars. These very significant sums were directed towards maintaining the stability and creditability of the Ukrainian economy and preservation of jobs. No other country provided such support except Russia.

What about the European partners? Instead of offering Ukraine real support, there is talk about a declaration of intent. There are only promises that are not backed up by any real actions. The European Union is using Ukraine’s economy as a source of raw foodstuffs, metal and mineral resources, and at the same time, as a market for selling its highly-processed ready-made commodities (machine engineering and chemicals), thereby creating a deficit in Ukraine’s trade balance amounting to more than 10 billion US dollars. This comes to almost two-thirds of Ukraine’s overall deficit for 2013.

To a large extent, the crisis in Ukraine’s economy has been precipitated by the unbalanced trade with the EU member states, and this, in turn has had a sharply negative impact on Ukraine’s fulfillment of its contractual obligations to pay for deliveries of natural gas supplied by Russia. Gazprom has no intentions except for those stipulated in the 2009 contract, nor does it plan to set any additional conditions. This also concerns the contractual price for natural gas, which is calculated in strict accordance with the agreed formula. However, Russia cannot and should not unilaterally bear the burden of supporting Ukraine’s economy by way of providing discounts and forgiving debts, and in fact, using these subsidies to cover Ukraine’s deficit in its trade with the EU member states.

The debt of NAK Naftogaz Ukraine for delivered gas has been growing monthly this year. In November-December 2013 this debt stood at 1.451,5 billion US dollars; in February 2014 it increased by a further 260.3 million and in March by another 526.1 million US dollars.  Here I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in March there was still a discount price applied, i.e., 268.5 US dollars per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. And even at that price, Ukraine did not pay a single dollar.

In such conditions, in accordance with Articles 5.15, 5.8 and 5.3 of the contract, Gazprom is compelled to switch over to advance payment for gas deliveries, and in the event of further violation of the conditions of payment, will completely or partially cease gas deliveries. In other words, only the volume of natural gas will be delivered to Ukraine as was paid for one month in advance of delivery.

Undoubtedly, this is an extreme measure.  We fully realize that this increases the risk of siphoning off natural gas passing through Ukraine’s territory and heading to European consumers. We also realize that this may make it difficult for Ukraine to accumulate sufficient gas reserves for use in the autumn and winter period. In order to guarantee uninterrupted transit, it will be necessary, in the nearest future, to supply 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas that will be pumped into Ukraine’s underground storage facilities, and this will require a payment of about 5 billion US dollars.

However, the fact that our European partners have unilaterally withdrawn from the concerted efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, and even from holding consultations with the Russian side, leaves Russia no alternative.

There can be only one way out of the situation that has developed. We believe it is vital to hold, without delay, consultations at the level of ministers of economics, finances and energy in order to work out concerted actions to stabilize Ukraine’s economy and to ensure delivery and transit of Russian natural gas in accordance with the terms and conditions set down in the contract. We must lose no time in beginning to coordinate concrete steps. It is towards this end that we appeal to our European partners.

It goes without saying that Russia is prepared to participate in the effort to stabilize and restore Ukraine’s economy. However, not in a unilateral way, but on    equal conditions with our European partners. It is also essential to take into account the actual investments, contributions and expenditures that Russia has shouldered by itself alone for such a long time in supporting Ukraine. As we see it, only such an approach would be fair and balanced, and only such an approach can lead to success.

 Texto reproducido de la  página web del Presidente de Rusia.

 

La crisis de Ucrania y la anexión de Crimea por Rusia destacaron la importancia política, militar y económica de Alemania en el mundo como no lo había hecho ningun otro acontecimiento desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial.  La prestigiada revista Der Spiegel, en su edición virtual, publicó en su último número dos artículos sobre el impacto de la crisis de Ucrania en la opinión  pública alemana y en la política de Alemania en la OTAN que,por su importancia reproducimos aquí.

 

HOW WESTERN IS GERMANY? RUSSIA CRISIS SPURS IDENTITY CONFLICT.

Essay by Christiane Hoffmann

The only reason my German grandfather survived as a Russian prisoner of war was that he had a beautiful singing voice. He had been drafted into the Volkssturm militia in 1944, during the final phase of the war in which the Nazi party recruited most able-bodied males into the armed forces, regardless of their age. The Russians captured him during the Siege of Breslau and he was taken to a labor camp, where he was forced to work as a logger.

There was barely anything to eat and he said the men died like flies. Every now and then, the camp cook would serve my grandfather an extra portion of the water gruel or an additional bit of bread because he had such a nice voice. At night, when he would sing his songs by the fire, the Russians would sit there as well, passing round the vodka bottle, and his voice would literally bring tears to their eyes — or at least that’s the version of events passed down in the family.

Right up to this day, Germans and Russians maintain a special relationship. There is no other country and no other people with which Germans’ relations are as emotional and as contradictory. The connection reaches deep into German family history, shaped by two world wars and the 40-year existence of East Germany. German families still share stories of cruel, but also kindhearted and soulful Russians. We disdain the Russians’ primitiveness, while treasuring their culture and the Russian soul.

‘Tug-of-War’ of Emotions

Our relationship to the Russians is as ambivalent as our perception of their character. “When it comes to the relations between the Germans and Russians, there is a tug-of-war between profound affection and total aversion,” says German novelist Ingo Schulze, author of the critically acclaimed “Simple Stories,” a novel that deals with East German identity and German reunification. Russians are sometimes perceived as Ivan the Terrible, as foreign entities, as Asians. Russians scare us, but we also see them as hospitable people. They have an enormous territory, a deep soul and culture — their country is the country of Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy.

It’s thus no wonder that the debate about Russia’s role in the Ukraine crisis is more polarizing than any other issue in current German politics. For Germany, the Ukraine crisis is not some distant problem like Syria or Iraq — it goes right to the core of the question of German identity. Where do we stand when it comes to Russia? And, relatedly: Who are we as Germans? With the threat of a new East-West conflict, this question has regained prominence in Germany and may ultimately force us to reposition ourselves or, at the very least, reaffirm our position in the West.

In recent weeks, an intense and polemical debate has been waged between those tending to sympathize with Russia and those championing a harder line against Moscow. The positions have been extreme, with one controversy breaking out after the other. The louder the voices on the one side are in condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the louder those become in arguing for a deeper understanding of a humbled and embattled Russia; as the number of voices pillorying Russia for violating international law in Crimea grows, so do those of Germans raising allegations against the West.

One of the main charges is that the European Union and NATO snubbed Moscow with their recent eastward expansion. Everyone seems to be getting into the debate — politicians, writers, former chancellors and scientists. Readers, listeners and viewers are sending letters to the editor, posting on Internet forums or calling in to radio or television shows with their opinions.

“Most Germans want to understand Russia’s side of things,” says Jörg Baberowski, a prominent professor of Eastern European history at Berlin’s Humboldt University. Historian Stefan Plaggenborg of the Ruhr University in Bochum has described the sentimental relationship between Germans and Russians as “doting love.” But how is it that this connection still exists after two world wars?

Perhaps a man who grew up in East Germany can explain what links Germans and Russians: Thomas Brussig, a novelist from the former East Berlin, says he first got to know Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union when he visited during a book tour. During his stay, he recalls being constantly asked which Russian writers influenced him. Brussig didn’t give the obvious answers — Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. He instead named a third-rate Soviet writer, Arkady Gaidar. “I did it to exact a bit of revenge and to remind them what imperialists they had been,” he says.

Brussig says he has no special attachment to the Russians. He says the only Russian figure he actually views positively is Gorbachev. It was “his vision of a Common European Home that cleared the way for the demolition of the Soviet Union.” It was a dream of a Europe without dividing lines. “We shouldn’t act as though the border to Asia starts where Lithuania ends,” says Brussig. “Europe reaches all the way into the Ural Mountains.”

Romanticism and War

There are some obvious explanations for the bond between Germans and Russians: economic interests, a deeply rooted anti-Americanism in both countries on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. But those are only superficial answers — dig a little deeper, and you’ll find two other explanations: Romanticism and the war.

The war explanation is inextricably linked to German guilt. As a country that committed monstrous crimes against the Russians, we sometimes feel the need to be especially generous, even in dealing with Russia’s human rights violations. As a result, many Germans feel that Berlin should temper its criticism of Russia and take a moderate position in the Ukraine crisis. It was Germany, after all, that invaded the Soviet Union, killing 25 million people with its racist war of extermination.

Hans-Henning Schröder, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs describes this as Russophilia and says it is a way of compensating for Germany’s Nazi past. Noted German historian Heinrich August Winkler fears Germans have adopted a “pathological learning process.”

The question of guilt has created a link between Germans and Russians, but the issue evaporated fairly quickly for the Russians after the war. Unlike the French, Scandinavians and Dutch, the Russians don’t tend to name and shame the Germans for crimes committed during the German occupation.

“Those who suffered the most had the least hate for the Germans,” says Baberowski, as if the issue of German guilt evaporated in the first frenzy of revenge at the end of the war. He believes it dissipated, at the very latest, after the return of the last prisoners of war to Germany. “The Russians told stories that would make your blood freeze in your veins, but they were never accusatory towards us,” says Schulze, who spent several months in St. Petersburg during the 1990s.

Despite the fact that German politicians exploited fears of Russia for many years in the postwar period, the war still connects Germans with Russians today. Our relationship is characterized by the “intimacy of a relationship that arose out of two wars,” says Herfried Münkler, a professor of political theory at Humboldt University. He describes the war as an experience shared by both Germans and Russians. He argues that conflict creates a stronger community dynamic than peace — and that, as a result of the war, Germans learned another thing: to never again attack Russia.

Then, of course, there are Germans’ romantic ideas about Russia. The country has always been idealized by Germans. No other country was as thrilled as Germany when glasnost and perestroika ushered in the de-escalation of the East-West conflict. Finally, they felt, it was acceptable for them to love Russia again. In Gorbachev, the good Russian had returned and the Germans saw no reason to continue living in fear of Russia.

Documentary programs about the remote reaches of Siberia and the banks of the Volga River attracted large viewership numbers. In the preceding decades, works by German-language authors like Heinz Konsalik — whose book “The Doctor of Stalingrad,” dealt with German prisoners of war — and Johannes Simmel — whose novels delved into Cold War themes — had been best-sellers.
“The east is a place of longing for the Germans,” says Münkler. The expanse and seeming infinity of Russian space has always been the subject of a German obsession for a simpler life, closer to nature and liberated from the constraints of civilization. The millions of Germans that were expelled from Eastern Europe and forced to move to the West after 1945 fostered that feeling. To them, it represented unspoiled nature and their lost homeland.

A Tradition of Anti-Western Sentiment

The flipside to Germany’s longing for Russia is its desire to differentiate itself from the West. Fundamental opposition to the West’s putative superficiality is seen as being part of the Russian soul: The perceived busyness and money-grubbing ways of the Western man stand in contrast to the East’s supposed depth of emotion and spirituality. “When something is romanticized, there is always an antidemocratic streak,” says Baberowski. It privileges harmony over conflict, unity over confrontation.

This tradition of anti-Western thinking has a long tradition in Germany. In “Reflections of an Unpolitical Man,” written during the First World War, Thomas Mann sought to strongly differentiate Germany from the West, even citing Dostoyevsky in the process. “Being German,” Mann wrote, “means culture, soul, freedom, art and not civilization, society, the right to vote, literature.” Mann later revised his views, but the essay remains a document for those seeking to locate Germany’s position between East and West.

Winkler points to a battle between the era’s German intellectuals, which pitted the “Ideas of 1914” — propagated by Johann Plenge, and emphasizing the “German values” of duty, discipline, law and order, ideas that would later influence National Socialism — against those of liberté, égalité, fraternité — which were adopted in 1789 during the French Revolution.

When West Germany became politically part of the West after 1945, the Eastern way of thinking was pushed to the wayside. But Russia remained a country of longing for the East Germans. Münkler believes that the longing for Russia is also a symbol of “what we used to think but are no longer supposed to think.”

A Special Role for Germany?

Henrich August Winkler argues that Germany has now arrived at the end of a “long journey to the West.” But with the Ukraine crisis and the threat of a revival of the East-West conflict, that arrival now seems less final. Suddenly old questions about a special role for Germany have resurfaced. Of course, no one would throw our membership in the EU or NATO into question, but Germany’s special ties to Russia — which differentiate it from other Western European countries — have a justifiable effect on our politics.

“The ideology of taking the position in the middle has exhausted itself,” Winkler told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper in a 2011 interview. That was easy to say at a time when the East-West rivalry seemed to have disappeared. Nowadays, that’s no longer the case.
If the EU manages to speak with a single voice, it remains possible that the West will be able to achieve something close to a consensus position. But if the conflict with Russia escalates and decisions have to be made about economic sanctions or the stationing of troops, the situation could get very tricky for Germany. It may also force Germans to confront the crucial question of where they stand in their relationship with Russia. It would be a tough question for Germans to dodge, given Germany’s current — voluntary or not — de facto leadership role in Europe.
In the Ukraine crisis, the stakes for Germany are higher than for perhaps any other country in Europe.

So far, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, have managed, with difficulty, to maintain a unified position, but cracks are already showing. Leaders of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which implemented Ostpolitik policies of detente with the East under Chancellor Willy Brandt, are far less inclined to assume the role of adversary to Russia than Merkel’s conservatives. The Social Democrats have now adopted the same strategy with Putin’s authoritarian regime as they did in the 1970s, when they sought a better understanding of the Communists. Their approach — to seek a better understanding of Russia’s positions — has been a successful political model for the party.

Germans Divided over Affiliation with West

Still, a divide is growing between the political elite and those in Germany who are sympathetic towards Russia. A recent survey conducted by pollster Infratest dimap showed that almost half of all Germans want the country to adopt the middle ground between Russia and the West. In the states that belonged to the former East Germany, twice as many people as in western German states believe that Germany should adopt a special role. But even in the western states, there is only a narrow majority which believes Germany should stand firmly on the side of NATO and the EU in the conflict with Russia. It’s fair to say that when it comes to question of its affiliation with the West, Germany is a divided land.

Old anti-American sentiments, intensified by the NSA spying scandal, could very well be playing a role, along with fear of an escalation in the conflict with Russia. It’s unlikely that the majority of Germans want to revive the former East-West order.

As a child in West Germany, I personally feared the Russians. I couldn’t sleep at night because we had, technically at least, only reached a cease-fire agreement with the Soviet Union and it sounded like the shooting would resume again after a short pause. Fortunately, there was a lot of singing in my family. Perhaps it had to do my grandfather. Maybe they wanted to provide us with an important tool for survival later in life — just in case the Russians came. In any case, my grandfather, who had sung for years for his very survival, never spared a nasty word about the Russians.

————————————

SEARCHING FOR DETERRENCE: UKRAINE CRISIS EXPOSES GAPS BETWEEN BERLIN AND NATO.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier wasted little time after returning to Berlin from the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels last week. He went straight to parliament to inform German lawmakers of the decisions reached. And he did so in the manner which he would like to be perceived as he negotiates the ongoing Crimea crisis: calm, reserved and to-the-point. Indeed, the only time he showed any emotion at all during last Wednesday’s meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee was when he spoke of NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Earlier, Rasmussen had published an op-ed in the German daily Die Welt saying that the path to NATO membership was fundamentally open to Ukraine. “The right of sovereign states to determine their own way forward is one of the foundations of modern Europe,” he wrote. That, though, marked a significant departure from Germany’s own focus on de-escalating the burgeoning confrontation with Russia. “NATO membership for Ukraine is not pending,” Steinmeier huffed. He said that foreign policy was in danger of becoming militarized, adding that it was about time for political leaders to regain the upper hand.

Steinmeier, though, is fully aware that the course Rasmussen is charting won’t disappear any time soon. Already, preparations have begun for the next NATO summit of alliance heads of state and government in September. Thus far, there is only one item on the agenda: a new strategy for NATO.

Berlin is skeptical. And concerned.

The alliance’s cooperation with Russia — which took years to build up — has been on ice since last week. And Moscow is no longer seen as a partner, but as an adversary. The logical next step is clear: How does military deterrence function in the year 2014?

It is a term that hasn’t been heard in Western Europe for some time. Prior to the fall of communism and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, deterrence was based on the destructive potential of atomic weapons, hundreds of thousands of soldiers posted in Europe, heavy weaponry and tanks. The West German army alone had some 495,000 troops, 4,100 Leopard battle tanks and 600 warplanes. The soldiers were the core of an Allied defensive force defending the border between the two power blocks — a frontier that ran right through Germany.

A Third Path?

Since then, Germany’s defense budget has shrunk from 3 percent of gross social product to just 1.2 percent. The country’s army, the Bundeswehr, now has 185,000 soldiers — a number that is set to fall even further — and is focused less on defending Germany than it is on participating in select foreign missions. Instead of tanks and howitzers stationed at the Fulda Gap, the emphasis is now on paratroopers and helicopters for places like Kosovo, Afghanistan or Africa.

Nobody is interested in reversing the trend. And arming for both scenarios would cost billions of euros that aren’t available. But is there a third path?

The new debate within NATO is no doubt music to the ears of aging cold warriors who have always felt that integrating Moscow into alliance structures was dangerously naive. But it is also the logical consequence of a reconsideration of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-term goals. If Russia is now planning its future against the West rather than with the West, then the question regarding a “modern deterrence” must be posed, a senior Defense Ministry official told SPIEGEL.

Prior to the Ukraine crisis, there were many asking what purpose NATO would serve once the alliance’s troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan. But now that Putin has taken over the Crimea — leading countries on the alliance’s eastern edge to feel threatened — the mood in NATO’s Brussels headquarters has changed dramatically. General Secretary Rasmussen, one NATO source said, has “positively blossomed.” And the US, Britain and most Eastern European member states support him.
Senior officers within NATO are demanding internally that the readiness of Western ground troops and air forces be increased. Currently, it would take 180 days for the requisite forces to be moved into place ahead of any operation. That time lag, argue military leaders, needs to be shortened, a proposition that would also affect up to 10,000 German troops. In addition, say military leaders, tank units should be strengthened and munition depots filled. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski even proposed stationing two NATO brigades (up to 10,000 troops) in his country. That, however, would require the construction of barracks, depots and equipment storage facilities to house them.
The Chancellery in Berlin is wary of such proposals. “We shouldn’t give the Russians any cause for accusing us of breaching treaties,” officials there say. In 1997, NATO committed itself to refrain from stationing large numbers of troops in former Warsaw Pact member states. Doing so now would be a provocation of a new dimension.

A Military Aspect

As such, Foreign Minister Steinmeier is focusing exclusively on diplomacy. His ministry is currently developing an “Action Plan for Ukraine,” which is to elucidate all of Berlin’s support for the new Ukrainian government. All of the ministries involved in that support are taking part in creating the action plan, the Foreign Ministry says. But the Ministry of Defense is not one of them. Steinmeier also provided the impetus for last week’s trip of several state secretaries to Ukraine, one for each ministry involved in Berlin’s support for Kiev. Again, the Ministry of Defense was not represented.
Yet there is certainly a military aspect to the issue. Already, Ukraine has sent a request to NATO headquarters for the delivery of radios, weapons and munitions from alliance stores. At the same time, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has asked senior German generals to examine what the alliance could do to provide additional support to NATO member states in Eastern Europe. NATO has asked alliance members to make additional contributions over and above the already agreed to increase to air-policing sorties and AWACS surveillance flights. Proposals are to be submitted to NATO headquarters by mid-April. Von der Leyen is likely to propose joint military maneuvers involving Germany, Poland and the Baltic states. A NATO maneuver planned for 2015 in Southern Europe could also be moved up and shifted to the east. But the minister has rejected sending heavy equipment or troops for an extended period.

Poland, for its part, would like to see even more shows of NATO solidarity. Not to put too fine a point on it, Poland is afraid of Russia, as are its Baltic neighbors. Some of that fear stems from the Soviet era. But Russia’s recent show of power on Ukraine’s eastern border — and Putin’s evident refusal to withdraw forces as he recently promised — has also raised concern in Warsaw.

The West long snickered at the dilapidated state of Russia’s military. But it has since been dramatically modernized and analysts in Western armies and intelligence services are concerned about the capabilities Russia has put on display in recent maneuvers. Operation Sapad 2013 is a particularly stark example. Sapad is the Russian word for West and the exercise could certainly be understood as a threat pointed in that direction. Officially, fewer than 13,000 soldiers took part in the exercise, falling below the threshold that would have required observation by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). But part of the exercise took place in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea that shares borders with Poland and Lithuania. Special forces were involved as were officers from the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency. It total, Western military leaders estimate, some 60,000 people took part in the maneuver — one which even interfered with a NATO radar facility in the Baltics. The Russian military also fired a short-range “Iskander” missile. It was armed with nothing more than a practice warhead, but drills for arming such missiles with nuclear warheads were also apparently carried out.

“It is clear what the Russians showed us with the maneuver,” says one Western military leader with knowledge of the exercise. “They can escalate a conflict on their western border and then contain it again.” Nobody doubts today that Russia would be able to overrun and occupy eastern Ukraine. The German government believes that preventing such an eventuality is the task of diplomacy. In any case, the erstwhile Western military deterrent has been weakened considerably. It was thought to be superfluous.

Adjusted for Peace

The number of warplanes possessed by Germany’s military has been more than halved since the fall of communism and hundreds of battle tanks were either mothballed or sold off. Instead, the Bundeswehr has built up a widely praised force that can be quickly deployed internationally and which is currently active on three continents. Now, some are viewing that strategy in a new light.
“Defense policy has been adjusted for peace missions under relatively favorable conditions, but the current crisis strongly illustrates that may have been too unidirectional and naive,” says Joachim Krause, head of the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University. “The Defense Ministry needs to conduct a fundamental review of its procurement plans.” Rainer Arnold, the defense policy coordinator for the center-left Social Democrats, who share power in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition government, views the situation similarly. “We need to reflect on whether the uncontrolled reduction of the NATO tank fleet was the right thing to do,” he says. “We should move toward developing a joint drone in Europe as quickly as possible. The decision on the ‘EuroHawk’ drones should also be reconsidered, he argues. All the alternatives appear to be a lot more expensive than it would be to just make a renewed and concentrated effort to get it certified,” he says. Germany’s former defense minister came under intense fire last year after he moved to cancel a contract for the surveillance drone after spending more than €500 million on it.

Volker Kauder, the head of the parliamentary group for Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, opposes such ideas. “The current situation with the Crimean crisis has absolutely zero influence on the Bundeswehr’s defense projects,” he claims. So far, that’s an opinion that has been shared by Defense Minister von der Leyen.

Newfound Optimism

Nevertheless, defense firms are already preparing for the possibility of new orders. They sense an opportunity to bring some shelved defense projects back to life. Three procurement plans are of particular interest to them.

The Eurofighter, for example, was long considered to be superfluous for the new Bundeswehr, which is largely an intervention army intended for foreign deployments. The German air force is already in possession of around 100 of the fighter jets; in total, it is planning the purchase of 143 at a cost of around €17 billion ($23.3 billion). However, the last tranche of deliveries was cancelled in 2013. At the time, manufacturer Airbus Defense promptly sent a €874.53 million bill demanding that the government pay for the cancellation. Today it appears to be less adamant about collecting that money though. Instead officials believe that the Defense Ministry could pour that money into other development projects with the company. “Losing the capacity to develop military aircraft in our own country,” Airbus sources say, “would be a serious strategic setback for Germany.”

Another defense project that Airbus executives are promoting, together with CEO Tom Enders, himself a paratrooper with the Germany army reserves, is the “Tiger” combat helicopter. Originally, the German army ordered 80 of the aircraft. Then the figure was reduced because the Tiger was designed technically to address outmoded scenarios conceived during the Cold War-era. It includes, for example, a roof-mounted device similar to the periscope on a submarine that enables the pilots to target and fire on approaching enemy tanks even as the helicopter itself is camouflaged.

Executives at the defense firm MBDA in Bavaria are also optimistic. The company is part of an international consortium that has been developing the MEADS missile defense system in recent years. Germany alone has already spent close to €1 billion on the project. The system is intended to replace the Bundeswehr’s aging Patriot antiballistic missiles, but the ministry has been hesitant in placing a final order. “If a contract doesn’t come together with the Defense Ministry in the coming months, then our engineers are going to quit,” MBDA management sources say off the record. Many argue that MEADS would be ideal for defending the Baltic states against a possible Russian attack.

Despite their newfound optimism, defense industry executives have been careful not to be too open about promoting their projects. Still, overtures are definitely being made. “In terms of security policy, Germany has become a copycat country,” one industry source said. “We have forgotten the language of deterrence.” Lines like that almost sound like they come from the Cold War-era — or at least one of the recent NATO Council meetings.

 

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