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  • 6 key challenges Trump needs to address to bring peace to Ukraine

    Responsible Statecraft involves hard choices and unpalatable compromises. General Keith Kellogg, President-elect Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, will need to confront head on a number of stubborn foreign policy obstacles as he seeks to broker peace in Ukraine in 2025. Right now there is no strategy Failure in Ukraine has emerged out of western disunity as the U.S., the EU, and the UK and intra-alliance interests collided on key issues such as sanctions, war aims, financial and military support. The run-up to the US Presidential elections, and its aftermath, saw repeated appeals to “Trump-proof” U.S. policy towards Ukraine. Kellogg should encourage Ukrainian and European leaders to coalesce around a single, realistic vision for Ukraine’s future. Defeating Russia is not a legitimate foreign policy goal as Ukraine will never be in a position to deliver this. The focus might include rebuilding a strong, democratic and prosperous Ukraine that attains EU membership at a determinate time. We cannot strike a peace deal without talking to Putin  In their America First paper, Kellogg and Fred Fleitz expressed an understanding of what the Biden Administration did not — that any approach to Russia must involve both deterrence and diplomacy . As they pointed out, “Biden was not interested in working with Putin. He wanted to lecture and isolate him.” Not talking to Putin has also been an unshakeable UK foreign policy approach since 2014 and is now hardwired within the EU, with its hawkish new foreign policy chief, former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas , ruling out direct engagement. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has made negotiations with Russia illegal. By contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said repeatedly that he is willing to engage with President Trump and other world leaders to resolve the Ukraine crisis. Kellogg needs to encourage European leaders to reengage with diplomacy and get on board with a more transactional approach with Russia that seeks workable solutions for all sides. Ukraine is never going to join NATO NATO cannot continue to hold a principled line on future Ukrainian membership that it will not underwrite with force of arms . Putin talks about the proximity of NATO rather than its size. Yes, he was forced to swallow Finnish membership , which he regarded de facto as halfway in NATO before his invasion of Ukraine. However, he has staked his political career on Ukraine never joining NATO for over 16 years, and that will never change. NATO membership should finally, irrevocably and without caveats be taken off the table as part of a deal which provides security guarantees to Ukraine. Who provides those security guarantees will require skillful negotiation, as Russia will expect guarantors to include non-NATO countries . Kellogg’s role here is in drawing a U.S. line firmly in the sand and killing the idea, in the face of potentially heated European resistance. Ukraine will undoubtedly want to secure a quid pro quo . The Europeans should stop kicking the EU can down the road European leaders have disingenuously kicked the issue of Ukraine’s EU membership down the road while supporting the war’s continuation. French President Emmanuel Macron has said that it could take 20 years for Ukraine to join. I have long been an advocate for Ukrainian membership in the EU. However, and as I have previously pointed out, this will come at a huge and potentially damaging cost to the EU project and to neighboring Poland, if not handled well. Specifically, the EU cannot afford to expand based on its current settlement without intolerable political risks of instability, which we are seeing play out in France and Germany. Kellogg should press European leaders to chart a realistic membership concept for Ukraine . This might allow for an accelerated political-level membership, even if the more contentious challenges around regional funds for infrastructure investment (called cohesion funding) and agricultural subsidies are deferred for later consideration. Sanctions haven't worked but can help deliver peace Russia remains in a vastly stronger position economically than Ukraine because of its size and its effective fiscal and monetary policy since 2014. Sanctions have never nor will they ever tip the balance in favor of Ukraine which is becoming an economically failed state. But even today, considerable effort in the West is invested in exploring how to make sanctions more impactful. This is wasted effort. There is considerable scope to offer an easing of sanctions that nonetheless maintains economic pressure on Russia. I revealed earlier this year that 92% of all UK sanctions on individuals and 77% of sanctions on companies have had zero impact; the people or entities sanctioned have no freezable assets within our jurisdiction. If the same were to apply across all sanctioning jurisdictions including the U.S., 20,000 Russian “zero-effect” sanctions could be removed upon the agreement of a peace plan between Ukraine and Russia. This would serve as a hugely symbolic confidence building measure with Russia while offering no short-term economic relief. The harder-hitting sanctions would remain, contingent on Russia meeting its obligations under any peace deal. This should include clarity on how and under what circumstances frozen Russian reserves of around $300 billion will be released. Zelensky may be part of the problem, not the solution An end to the war will signal an end to Zelensky’s political career, at least for now. Opinion polls suggest he will lose a presidential election when war ends. Zelensky’s regular prognostications about putting his country in a stronger position to negotiate look increasingly self-serving. Ukraine will never be in a stronger position than today, militarily economically or demographically. This performative illusion and delusion merely puts off the inevitable and much-needed elections in Ukraine that would follow on from a ceasefire. Zelensky has undoubtedly played a colossal role as a rallying point for Western support for his nation at war. But he is a politician and not a demigod. And our well-intended political beatification of Zelensky has effectively given him a veto over peace. Kellogg needs to be hard-headed and recognize that, rather than being part of the solution, Zelensky may be part of the problem in ending the war. He should encourage Zelensky to play his biggest role so far, in putting Ukraine first and taking the country to elections. This article was originally published in Responsible Statecraft .

  • Should Russia cut a real estate deal with Ukraine to end the war?

    If you were worried that 2024 hadn’t been bizarre and unpredictable enough, Donald Trump recently suggested that the U.S. might buy Greenland in a ‘large real estate deal’. This follows an earlier statement that he wanted the U.S. to reclaim control of the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state . None of these ideas seem likely to gain ground. The incoming U.S. president appears to enjoy baiting Canada’s embattled prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Both the Panamanian and Danish governments responded angrily to Trump’s nods in their territorial direction. But Trump’s statements were intended for effect. They may also offer a way forward in Ukraine, through a deal for Russia to buy occupied territory. While Trump may be talking with specifically American interests in mind, he has inadvertently opened up a much wider debate about borders. Since 1945, almost all border changes that have taken place have emerged out of the collapse of empire as new states were formed and recognised by the UN. In that regard, the UN charter has proved remarkably resilient in maintaining a global status quo, with all its imperfections. The first Gulf War in 1991 emerged out of a need to respond to Iraq’s invasion of oil-rich Kuwait . At that time, Kuwait represented by some margin the largest post-War attempt by another country to seize land from a neighbour by force. The U.S. is not about to go to war to gain territory and couldn’t afford it anyway. Canada’s economy is valued at $2.2trn annually and an entirely hypothetical purchase of that country would nudge the U.S. closer to the point where its national debt was unsustainable . Greenland boasts an enormous wealth of natural resources including oil, gas and rare minerals, key to the production of everything from electric cars to cell-phones. But, again, at what cost? Clearly, Chinese influence is one factor in Trump’s posturing around Greenland and Panama in particular. And his statements are not historically unprecedented. The U.S. has bought territory from other states before, most notably the purchase of Alaska from Russia. But, modern day borders are largely a construct of the post-World War II settlement. Whether they make sense in ethnic or economic terms is secondary to the fact that they have provided for a certain level of stability in global affairs since the signing of the UN Charter in June 1945 . Throwing the nations of the world open to the highest bidder threatens to unpick the delicate and imperfect threads of that world order with potentially disastrous consequences. However, with team Trump looking for ideas to end the war in Ukraine, it does raise the question about whether Russia might give up its frozen assets in a grand deal to buy that lands that it has incorporated. The issue of the frozen $300bn in Russian assets refuses to go away. U.S. and European figures continue to explore ever more creative ways to seize these assets. However, the illegal theft of assets exposes the west’s financial system to significant risk as investors in the developing world move their assets to safer jurisdictions, including within BRICS. Recognition grows that the $50bn G7 loan package agreed in June is a large debt trap for Ukraine itself, as I have said consistently. And, as I have also said, Russia will expect its frozen assets to be unfrozen when the war ends; expropriating these assets actively disincentivises Russia from ending the war, as it continues to win on the battlefield. With pressure from the west unlikely to soften and with Russia’s legal position not likely to change, the frozen assets question arguably represents the biggest obstacle to a peace deal. New ideas are needed. I propose that Russia gives up its $300bn in frozen assets to Ukraine in return for Ukrainian recognition of its claims on lands that Russia has incorporated. As part of this, Ukraine would renounce its NATO aspiration but receive security guarantees from an international coalition of countries, including in the developing world. Zelensky has made noises recently about making territorial concessions as part of a future peace plan, although he may be seeking a trojan horse to secure NATO membership which remains off the table. He has certainly accepted that Ukraine cannot retake Crimea by force. For Russia, $300bn represents a vast cost, but in fact constitutes less than 50% of its current international reserves. Ending the war would allow Russia to walk away with its claims on land incorporated during the war legally decided. It would allow the slow process of normalisation of relations with Ukraine to begin. For Ukraine, $300bn in frozen assets would go a huge way to funding reparation of immense damage to its cities and critical infrastructure since war started valued at around $500bn . It would also support rebuilding Ukraine’s economy and progressing long frozen efforts at reforms around corruption, human rights and democratic freedoms . An end to the war would allow Ukraine to reduce its colossal defence spending return to a more normal fiscal framework and end its dependence on foreign aid to pay nurses and civil servants . For western powers, a deal on territory between Russia and Ukraine would also remove a contingent liability to continue to fund a war that Ukraine is slowly losing on the battlefield. There is no plan in place to continue to fund the Ukrainian state after the end of 2025, when the $50bn G7 loan package will likely run out. The U.S. and Europe will therefore be on the hook to pay for a war that ran on into 2026. All sides could walk away from this deal claiming victory of sorts. For Russia that would be certainty that western powers didn’t return at a later time to help a rearmed Ukraine fight over land it had lost. Ukraine would walk away with its sovereignty and freedom and be able to join the EU, if it still wished. Taking all the risks into account, this could be the real estate deal of the century.

  • Salome Zourabichvili is a threat to Georgian democracy

    She plans to mount a coup d’etat by insisting that she remains the rightful ruler of Georgia. I spent thirty minutes watching current Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili’s interview with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell on their popular ‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast. It was both illuminating and deeply disturbing. My main conclusion was that the biggest threat to democracy in Georgia is Zourabichvili herself, and that Georgian authorities should tread carefully to avoid bungling the end of her Presidency on Sunday 29 January. Salome Zourabichvili is very obviously driven by a deep-seated hatred of Russia dating back to her grandparents’ decision to go into exile in 1921, in the teeth of the Red Army occupation of Georgia. It was clear that she has made it her life’s ambition to right the wrong of Georgia’s occupation, by which I inferred she meant to eradicate any hint of hated Russian influence. Salome has a childish and romanticised historical view of Georgia rooted in her affluent childhood in central Paris and attending the Georgian church. Like a child, she was mendacious and slippery in her response to the question of her Georgian citizenship, describing herself as always having been Georgian through speech and song at home. In fact, she only gained Georgian citizenship on March 20 2004, awarded by then President Saakashvili, while she was still France’s serving Ambassador to Georgia. The reason for Zourabichvili’s sudden citizenship was to allow her to become Georgia’s Foreign Minister, a role she carried out for a year and a half, for most of that time still employed by the French Diplomatic Service. If that sounds familiar to you, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s first Finance Minister in 2014, Natalia Jaresko, was a former State Department official, as is former President Viktor Yushchenko’s wife, Kateryna. Noone screams ‘democracy’ more, after all, than western officials put in charge of countries that they want to rescue from the tyranny of independence. By becoming Georgian Foreign Minister while still a serving French diplomat and French citizen, she described a sense of exacting ‘revenge’ on behalf of her parents. So, it was apparent that she has spent her whole life in a private fury about the Russian menace and developed an almost fanatical determination to right what she considers to have been an historical wrong. A political opportunist, she has aligned with and dropped most political parties in Georgia on her way to the top, including Georgia Dream itself. Like a French Greta Thunberg without the global fanbase, Zourabichvili has turned her fury more recently towards righting the so-called injustice imposed on Georgia by the 26 October election which she describes as having been stolen. She is entirely dismissive of the weak support lent to her cause by the OSCE monitoring mission, which found that the Georgian elections were generally well organised, even if there were discrepancies in a number of areas. Or to the fact that most European Heads of State have soft-pedalled on outright condemnation of the Georgia Dream party since that time. Her position rests almost exclusively on the notion that the wrong party won, and that that must by definition be anti-democratic. That – in her words – the elections themselves were ‘really a referendum’ about Georgia’s right to choose Europe over Russia. And that the fact Georgia Dream won must axiomatically indicate that the result was fiddled. An elderly woman, reaching back to her high-society upbringing in Paris with her Nazi sympathising relatives, she describes a young generation of Georgians who have lived and ‘studied abroad’ and are desperate to choose Europe. And yet, statistics from UNESCO show that only around 10000 Georgians study overseas in tertiary education each year, or around one quarter of a percent of the population. Her idea of the modern Georgian citizen is that of an urban rich kid, who may well yearn for a European future for their country after skiing trips to Chamonix. That chauvinistic and narrow view of an appropriate Georgianness doesn’t represent the median of a Georgian society in which GDP per capita is just $8200. While the elections on 26 October were not perfect, a very clear pattern emerged in which rural Georgians, who make up 40% of the population, voted overwhelmingly in favour of Georgia Dream. As has been the case since the election night itself on 26 October, Salome Zourabichvili has provided not a single scrap of evidence of Russian interference. Indeed, at the end of the interview, she conceded that Bidzina Ivanishvili himself is not even a direct agent of Russia. Bizarrely, she even described Sergei Lavrov as extremely professional. Her protest is entirely ideological; that any right-minded Georgian must necessarily have wanted to vote against Georgia Dream, and, by implication Russia, although she has never articulated persuasively how the two are linked. And that by choosing Georgia Dream, voters have either been got at or are plain stupid and not worthy of the right to vote. But her position is also astonishingly self-interested. Narcissistic and drunk on her own propaganda, she just wants to cling to power. Come what may, Salome Zourabichvili is determined to remain President of Georgia, even though her constitutional term expires on Sunday 29 December. At first, during the interview, as if she has a grand plan that she only intends to reveal at the weekend, she refused to be drawn on her future. But by the end of the she announced that ‘I will certainly be President this time next week for the Georgian people’. So having heaped scorn of the democratic failings of the electoral process in her adopted country, Salome Zourabichivili plans to mount a coup d’etat, at least in publicity terms, by insisting that she remains the rightful ruler of Georgia. What she undoubtedly wants is to create a huge scene in which she suffers a deathless martyrdom involving her being dragged out of town and exiled, bullied and bruised. Georgian authorities, which appear so far to have managed the heavily orchestrated protests in Tblisi with restraint, should continue to do so in ushering her out of power in a firm, yet polite way, so that Georgia’s incoming President, Mikheil Kavelashvili, can assume office.

  • UK foreign policy - drifting in circles

    I recently enjoyed a conversation with the Multipolarity podcast during which I concluded that UK foreign policy has drifted in circles for the past two decades. Circles, because we continue to try to same old prescriptions, hoping vainly that they might work this time. And drifting, because we lack any sense of purpose and are completely dependent for our ideas on a changing cast of decision makers in Washington DC. I also delve, of course, into the parlous state of UK-Russia relations. I hope you enjoy the podcast!

  • Why Putin won't go nuclear following ATACMS decision

    Many western commentators are frantically predicting the imminent onset of World War III following Joe Biden's decision to permit the use of US ATACMS missiles inside of Russia. The Russian media and political establishment will undoubtedly respond furiously to this move. But much depends on how the missiles are used. With a Trump Presidency on the horizon on a mandate to end the war in Ukraine, I believe Putin will be measured in his response. Republican commentators have condemned the move by Biden as escalating risk of WWIII Unlike in 2016, there has been fairly widespread condemnation from supporters of Trump at Biden's move, which has been viewed as a blatant escalation. Donald Trump Junior went to X to claim the Biden administration was trying to 'get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.' Other Republican politicians including Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia have echoed the World War 3 warning. Venture Capitalist and Trump Support David Sacks asked if Biden's goal was 'to hand Trump the worst situation possible?' Biden copies Obama's final move, to break up the diplomatic ground for an incoming Trump Presidency Biden's move was designed to make the diplomatic terrain harder for Trump to navigate on Ukraine policy. Putin will view it in those terms too. He will remember that President Obama pulled a similar - though less dangerous - stunt during this final days in office. In one of his final foreign policy moves Obama announced sanctions against Russia for alleged election meddling, and expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the USA. This prompted a frenzy of reporting about how Putin might respond, much like we have seen over the past twenty-four hours. In the end, Putin chose not to respond and, instead, he paused to see where US policy would go under the incoming Trump administration. ATACMS decision not as significant as it appears as Zelensky's hands still tied Biden's decision is an extension of the decision from May to allow limited use of US HIMARS systems to hit military installations in the borderlands of Russia to reduce attacks on Kharkiv. Zelensky won't have weapons free to strike at will within Russia. While escalatory, it is not as significant as it seems. The indications coming out of the US administration are that the ATACMS missiles may only be used to quell an expected major Russian assault on Ukrainian formations dug in in Kursk oblast. Biden's decision an attempt to help Zelensky save face after blunder of Kursk offensive Ukraine has lost around half of the territory in Kursk that it occupied during its audacious raid in August. Clinging on to that territory until peace talks inevitably happen to end the war, Zelensky has said, will allow him symbolically to trade Russian land for Ukrainian land occupied by Russia. Since the Kursk offensive, Ukraine has lost more land to the relentless, grinding Russian advance in the Donbas, which takes small steps most days. Losing the foothold in Kursk will reveal what many commentators already point out, that the Ukrainian incursion was a strategic blunder by Zelensky that won't change the outcome of a war he is losing. So, a US decision to permit the use of ATACMS at best is an attempt by the Biden Administration to help Zelensky save face. Russia's response will depend on actual ATACMS strikes With the use of ATACMS entirely dependent on US intelligence and targeting, it is unlikely that the outgoing Biden administration will permit wider attacks outside of the Kursk theatre or in military centres that are in range of Kursk. However, we have yet to see how the missiles will be used and Putin will take his cue from that, rather than acting pre-emptively. Putin will have to respond in some way Despite the use of HIMARS already inside of Russia, Putin will have to reciprocate in some way, having said on screen in St Petersburg in September that he would. He doesn't have the political space not to act. Putin has been here before and probably won't overreact Putin knows that a major Russian retaliation that targeted US military or other assets would make it far harder for Trump to sue for peace between Russia and Ukraine, as he has promised to do. I assess it unlikely that Putin would escalate to a nuclear level on the back of what is essentially a tactical change in western weapons' use. He won't want to close off any space that Trump has to negotiate, which is Biden's aim in taking the ATACMS decision. While he has the resources and political support to continue bleeding Ukraine white, the war in Ukraine still comes at a significant economic and human cost to Russia. Trump offers a potential off-ramp that would leave Putin in a better position that he was in March 2022, when the US and UK blocked the Istanbul peace agreement. Putin will be happy for Russian state commentators to whip up the risk of over-escalation As happened in late 2016, Putin will undoubtedly encourage Russian talking heads to sow panic in the western media about a possible Russian over-escalation. That will give him space to respond in a moderate way and illuminate the western press as hysterical and Russophobic, a common attack line. More likely, he will: up strategic attacks on energy infrastructure in Ukraine; possibly target NATO weapons' distribution hubs in Poland; make a limited and pre-signaled strike on a US military facility in Europe or elsewhere. The risk to the UK and France There are signals that the UK and France are following America's move in possibly authorising the use of Storm Shadow and Scalp Cruise Missiles inside of Russia. I believe the same limitations on targeting would apply, as above. The same risks of a limited Russian strike on UK and French assets therefore apply. However, the bigger risk is that a Trump Administration will reverse the decision on ATACMS use inside of Russia, leaving both countries on a limb in which Ukraine still hits Russia with their weapons while Trump pushes for peace talks between Zelensky and Putin. That will mean France and Britain have a bigger climb down from their position of unquestioning support for war in Ukraine, when ceasefire talks start. In Britain in particular, that may increase pressure on the government's enormous spending on supporting the ongoing war, at a time when taxes are taking a massive hike and the cost of living crisis continues. There is more scope for France to pivot its position within the EU, which will be unable to match US financial military support for Ukraine if Trump pushes, instead, for peace. Keir Starmer has already got off to a bad start with Trump by sending Labour party activists to support the Harris campaign. He risks leaving the UK increasingly isolated and irrelevant on Ukraine policy. Plus ca change! For now, don't expect World War III to start overnight. Keep calm and carry on pressing for this mindless war to end.

  • Putin has established escalation dominance over the US by deploying the Oreshnik missile: it’s not the first time

    Below an article that was published in Responsible Statecraft on 27 November 2024. Since that time, and as I predicted, there has been no further escalation by the US or other western powers, specifically a loosening of restrictions on the use of longer-range western weaponry inside of Russia. Indeed, for the first time yesterday (2 December), UK Prime Minister conceded in his Manion House speech that Britain now needs to help Ukraine get into the strongest position to secure a negotiated settlement to the war. Of course, that too has been Zelensky's narrative for some time, in pressing his Victory Plan which, in fact, seeks further militarization of the conflict. Events on the ground in Ukraine show a continued, creeping loss of Ukrainian land in the Donbass; Russian forces have started to encircle Velyka Novosilka and create a new salient south of Pokrovsk that hints at a winter campaign there, after months in which the line of contact has been static. For now, with western rhetoric having cooled since the devastating deployment of the Oreshnik, there appears to be no military scenario in which Ukraine will finally enter peace talks with Russia in a position more advantageous than now. That argues for the incoming President Trump to press for peace talks before his inauguration. On Nov. 21, Vladimir Putin presented a huge escalation challenge to the West: are you ready for Russia to strike NATO facilities anywhere in Europe with hypersonic munitions that you don’t possess? Until Monday, Nov. 18, media outlets brimmed with pro-war activists urging Biden and other Western leaders to free Zelensky’s hand to use longer-range weapons deep inside Russia. Since the summer, bombastic British ex-military saber rattlers have been talking up the decisive impact that Storm Shadow missiles — and by implication, US ATACMS — could make on the battlefield in Kursk, with a range of 300 kilometers or around 185 miles. They got their wish on Nov. 19, when the first salvo of ATACMS was lobbed at a military facility in Bryansk — outside the area in which Ukrainian forces are battling in Kursk. The following day, British Storm Shadow missiles were fired into Kursk, with the jubilant approval of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, no less. These strikes elicited widespread attaboy jingoism from the Western media, with hardly a word of caution. However, those who call for the use of deeper strikes into Russian territory fundamentally misunderstand Russian strategy. I have seen at critical points over the past decade that Russia seeks escalation dominance , a Cold War concept holding that a state can best contain conflicts and avoid escalation if it is dominant at each successive rung up the “ladder of escalation,” all the way to the nuclear rung. Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia has sought to dominate each step up the escalation ladder. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 were major escalations that NATO didn’t meet head-on. This strategy is also seen in the diplomatic sphere, for example, Russia escalated a dispute with the U.S. in 2017 when it kicked 755 American diplomatic staff out of Russia. When Moscow over-escalates, it makes a gamble that its adversary will not be willing to step another rung higher on the escalation ladder. There is a hard-wired view in Moscow, bolstered no doubt by Biden’s incrementalism , that Russia will always overmatch a divided and morally weak Western alliance when push comes to shove. Russia has something that the West does not have — the sovereign power and the political will to act unilaterally. Putin had been subject to criticism from hardliners in Russia that he hasn’t responded to the slow ratcheting up of military support to Ukraine from the West. As indicated previously, Ukraine receiving permission to use ATACMS deep into Russia would leave Putin with no choice but to respond, having said in September that he would. So, on Nov. 21, Russia launched a hypersonic Oreshnik missile at a well-fortified Ukrainian weapons facility in Dnipropetrovsk. This is the first time an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile has been used in combat. Its use was significant for several key reasons. First, it offered a major escalation in destructive capabilities. Russia had been trying unsuccessfully to destroy the Yuzhmash weapons facility since 2022 using the battlefield weapons at its disposal. Built during the Soviet era, Yuzhmash has workshops buried deep underground to protect them from attack. Among other purposes, the facility is thought to be where Rheinmetall has set up a plant to repair German Leopard tanks. It is also used in missile and long-range drone production. According to eye-witness reports from Russian sources, the damage caused was considerably more extensive than after previous conventional strikes.The video footage of the strike was astonishing, with molten shards of light erupting out of the clouds to strike the factory. It was a studied demonstration of shock and awe tactics. Second, carefully described by Putin as a “ test ” the Oreshnik is now a deployed capability far beyond those that Western powers have allowed Ukraine to use, namely ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles. And also beyond the capabilities that Zelensky had requested in his so-called “Victory Plan” — namely Tomahawk cruise missiles — that the U.S. has refused to sanction . Putin has left the door open for further “tests” of the Oreshnik. The U.S., UK, and others now face placing Ukraine in a position where a more devastating weapon may be used against strategic or battlefield targets that would overmatch the use of ATACMS or Storm Shadow inside of Russia, with their shorter range and more limited payload. The potential future use of Oreshnik will render ATACMS and Storm Shadow as battle-losing capabilities. And Ukraine is still losing the battle for Donetsk, slowly and in a grinding fashion, even with the more limited arsenal Russia has deployed so far. Third, the claimed range of Oreshnik is 16 times greater than ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles. That puts any NATO targets within Europe in the scope of a conventional strike. The capability displayed and the potential destruction of valuable Western repair facilities at Yuzhmash will have satisfied Kremlin hawks that Oreshnik has taken Russia two steps up the escalation ladder. Putin has also sent a clear message to military planners from the U.S. and UK who supported the deployment of the ATACMS, that a more specifically NATO target may be next. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pro-ATACMS advocates have largely fallen silent since the deployment of Oreshnik. There have been two further declared U.S. ATACMS uses , although specifically within the Kursk region itself, where Ukrainian forces are clinging on to the land they captured in August. It had already taken the U.S. and the U.K months finally to agree to deploy ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles in a limited fashion within Russia. The scope appears to have been tightened further in recent days. In the twilight of his presidency, Biden must now decide whether he is willing to over-escalate Putin. That would require him to expand, massively, the scale and scope of U.S. weapons systems that can be used in Ukraine, knowing that American forces don’t currently have an in-service equivalent to the Oreshnik. And with a Trump presidency looming larger each day, it is questionable that he will.

  • To secure peace in Ukraine, Trump needs to phase out misguided sanctions

    Below an article that I published in November on Strategic Culture website. My assessment is as relevant as ever. With much speculation about how Trump might get Zelensky to come to the negotiating table,, very little has been said on how sanctions relief might leverage Russian engagement in any peace process. Keith Kellogg, Trump's Envoy For Ukraine, mentioned sanctions relief in the paper he produced in April on peace in Ukraine, but no more detailed suggestions have emerged since his appointment. Now is the time to put some intellectual effort into planning for sanctions relief against key milestones, and to ensure that any plan is Zelensky-proof. Following Trump’s election, there has been much speculation about how the war in Ukraine might end. But to understand it might end, it’s vital to understand how it started. The origins of the war in Ukraine can be traced back to the ouster of Ukrainian President Yanukovych in February 2014. Russia labelled it a coup, realists would say it was unconstitutional change in power, and U.S. & British officials would shrug their shoulders. After Russia occupied Crimea and as insurgency broke out in the Donbas, the French and Germans launched a peace process involving the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine. From this so-called ‘Normandy format’ emerged two peace deals named the Minsk agreements. But the UK was sidelined from the peace process and the Americans suspicious of it. Left out, Britian, supported by the U.S., pushed sanctions as the primary vehicle to contain Russia, running counter to what the French and Germans were trying to achieve. By the summer of 2015, the Minsk agreements had become sidelined, and sanctions were set in stone. Since that time, Russia has become the most sanctioned country on the planet. Thirty-three western countries, led by the USA, imposed more than twenty thousand sanctions against Russian people and companies. That’s fifteen times more sanctions than Iran in a distant second place. If we could completely cut Russia’s economic ties with the west, so the theory went, then that would be so damaging that Russia would have to withdraw from Ukraine. Western powers therefore sanctioned everything that they could, from money, ships, oil, gold, diamonds, weapons and all manner of hi-tech components. But from a very early stage, it was clear that sanctions weren’t altering Russian policy to Ukraine, quite the opposite. When I left the Foreign Office in 2023, the UK government with its western partners, had gone through all the sanctions that they thought might weaken Russia. The west could probably find more people or entities to sanction. But policy makers never really gripped Russian gas, as some European countries still rely on it. And anyway, the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline solved that conundrum. Russian oligarchs that had political connections in the west were spared as were Russian companies that owned factories in the USA, to prevent American job losses. But we hit most things and neared the bottom of the barrel. Yet, Russia’s economy always seemed to bounce back. That’s partly because, sanctions were never as big a deal as other events that moved the global economy, such as the oil price collapses in 2014 and 2016 and Covid. But it was also because Russia continually adapted its macroeconomic policy to absorb and, in the end, profit from sanctions. Following an immediate post-sanctions contraction of economic growth in 2022, Russia has grown more strongly than the western countries that imposed sanctions. Western powers therefore needed something stronger, so sanctions evolved into a political tool to isolate Russia on the world stage. The USA, European Union and other countries including Japan and Australia sanctioned every possible type of economic, social and cultural activity involving Russia. Western academics no longer collaborate with Russian academics. Russian airliners can’t pass over western airspace and vice versa. Border posts have been closed or minimized. Russia can’t compete in international sporting events or even the Eurovision song contest. Russian Ministers are subjected to indignant walkouts by western diplomats and ministers at international gatherings. Ordinary Russian people were denied a weekend ParkRun. Ukraine did its part, cancelling the Russian Orthodox church and going on a propaganda offensive with any western company that sold goods with the word ‘Russia’ in their branding. And yet, outside of the west, Russia’s standing on the global stage doesn’t seem to be in decline. In a process accelerated by the Ukraine war, Russia, with China, has spearheaded a rapid shift by the developing world to create their own formats for dialogue and cooperation. There are over 200 countries on this planet, so the wealthy ‘west’ is in a minority. The BRICS group has grown rapidly, with a long queue of countries waiting to join, including NATO member Turkey.. Vladimir Putin has an International Criminal Court arrest warrant out on him, yet he still travels freely to ‘friendly’ countries, where he receives the red-carpet treatment. He recently hosted a successful BRICS summit in Kazan while war continued to rage in Ukraine. War started in February 2022 a few days after the Ukrainian government finally signalled the death knell of the Minsk peace agreements. But the point is that the Minsk agreement was necessarily bad; it’s simply that the U.S. and UK invested significant efforts in ensuring its failure. Sanctions never looked likely to prevent war, nor force its end, despite the death or injury to over one million people and a vast exodus of Ukraine’s population. War in Ukraine became reduced to the brutal, bloody town by town fighting in Europe after D-Day, while life in the west, and in Russia, carried on almost as normal. Fighting alone, Ukraine has never had sufficient resources to survive and never will. There is a strong case that sanctions created the conditions for war to erupt, by undermining the very peace process – the Normandy Format – that was established to prevent it. And that the west’s continued blind faith in sanctions took us to the brink of a doomsday scenario, more horrific than the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Western leaders, not wanting war themselves, focused blindly on supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. But the notion of ‘as long as it takes’ became tarnished with increasing numbers of western politicians started complaining that it is taking too long. Not least as the economics and demographics of war still show that Russia can continue fighting for as long as it takes, and that Vladimir Putin has the domestic political support to do that. So, beyond the hype, if Trump is serious about ending the war in Ukraine, he must look at its origins. A ceasefire alone won’t cut it with Putin. There needs finally to be a peace proposal that includes targeted sanctions reduction. That, and a final reckoning with the NATO membership issue, the brightest red line of all.

  • Why election interference is self-defeating for the EU

    I recently caught up with Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen on their popular Duran geopolitics podcast, to discuss the recent elections in Georgia and Moldova. Conversation inevitably drifted to Ukraine as well. My key takeaway from our discussion was that European leaders have lost sight of the need for a pan-European peace. That will only change when there is a paradigm shift away from seeing elections in former Soviet States as a zero-sum choice between Europe and Russia. And remembering that focussing on economic relationships first is what helped Europe emerge stronger and more peacefully from the devastation of World War II. As we nudge ever closer to World War III, politicians on all sides need to get back to basics and remember that our collective security hinges on every country believing that its core strategic interests aren't threatened.

  • Poland doesn't want Ukraine to join the eu, and neither do other well-subsidized EU Member States

    Since late 2013, when the Ukraine crisis first erupted, the British government has insisted that we need to support Ukrainian people in making a ‘European choice’. Setting aside the irony that the UK chose to leave the EU in 2016, many Brits might still consider it a good choice. I’m pro-European, possibly because I grew up in Germany during the height of the cold war, the son of a working-class British soldier. In my view, Britain gained considerable economic, social and cultural benefit, as a sovereign nation, within a wider peaceable European community of five hundred million people. What has never been clear to me is why, in ‘choosing’ Europe, Ukraine should cut its ties with Russia. When Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1971, our country was not asked to cut off our relationship with the USA. We could be friends with Europeans and Americans. I don’t think most people in Ukraine, whether they are native Ukrainian or Russian speakers, would have chosen to lose half a million men and women to death or injury in a war with Russia. Or twenty percent of their land, or seventy percent of their power generation and most of their heating during bitterly cold winters. Or for the Ukrainian economy to be smaller than it was in 2008 and unlikely to return to pre-war levels until after 2030. At the heart of this so-called European choice is a simple, unavoidable reality. Ukraine is too poor to join Europe on equal terms. Yet western leaders continue to press Ukraine to choose Europe and not Russia or, indeed, a balanced relationship with both (even better). In theory at least, there are good economic reasons why Ukraine might want to join the EU because it is significantly poorer than European member states. If Ukraine could match European economic development, it would undoubtedly be a good thing, you’d think. The problem is that the EU project is built on the rich countries subsidizing the poorer countries (and, actually, subsidizing some of the richer countries too). When only poor countries join the EU, the system needs to create more money to subsidize them, which means the rich countries pay even more to keep the club together. That’s one reason, as well as geography, that you don’t find rich countries queuing up to join the EU. If they did, the balancing effect would make it easier for poor countries like Ukraine to join. Ukrainian membership of the EU would throw everything into the air and inevitably force some countries that currently benefit from EU funding, to start paying in. Ukraine’s size and fecundity is its economic curse, when it comes to Europe. With a large, well-educated, pre-war population of forty-one million people, Ukraine would become Europe’s fourth largest country. It would have by far the largest area of agricultural land, which is also the most fertile in Europe, and account for over twenty percent of EU farmland. The Financial Times assessed in 2023 that it would cost the EU €196bn to bring Ukraine into the EU, on the same terms as other Member countries. That’s because Ukraine is so much poorer than the rest of the EU, with income just 13% of the EU average. Size matters when it comes to EU funding; the poorer you are, the more you get. Which seems fair. Unfortunately, that money would have to come out of the pockets of richer EU countries, actually, every EU country. Czechia, Estonia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia and Cyprus would between them lose around €11.2bn each year in cohesion funding alone if Ukraine joined on the current arrangement. Across the board, EU farmers would see twenty percent cuts in income from agricultural subsidies. The violent demonstrations by Polish farmers in March 2024 at the flood of cheap Ukrainian grain imports, would pale in comparison to unrest across the whole of the EU, should open access be granted to Ukraine’s farms. That’s why, just weeks after war in Ukraine started, French President Macron said that it would ‘take decades’ for Ukraine to join the EU; he understands precisely the social upheaval that would erupt among French farmers, by far the largest recipient of Common Agricultural Policy funds, at the prospect of big cuts to their incomes. While affluent Britain was an EU member, the issue of our net contributions to the European budget bedevilled a succession of governments until Brexit was forced upon us. It is my view that Ukrainian membership of the EU would stoke support for nationalist parties like the National Rally in France, Alternative für Deutschland and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany, not to mention the Law and Justice Party in Poland and elsewhere. So, Ukraine’s EU membership pathway (much like its NATO membership aspiration), is a big can of worms that is routinely kicked down the road by European states. Perhaps the biggest roadblock, ironically, would be Poland, one of the most steadfast countries in providing support to Ukraine since the war started. Poland’s economy has boomed since it joined the EU in 2004. Like Ukraine, Poland is big, and bountiful, yet its population is smaller than Ukraine’s by around 5 million and it possesses just a third of the agricultural land. Its income is below the EU average yet still five times higher than Ukraine’s. Poland receives by far the largest payouts from the EU in the form of grants and agricultural subsidies of around €16bn each year. Of this, Poland receives so much EU cohesion funding (almost €11bn each year) that it soaks up a quarter of the total, way ahead of its closest rivals Czechia and Romania. Poland would lose most of its EU funding if Ukraine joined the EU and may even creep into net-contributor territory. Poland would literally be paying for Ukraine to join the EU. Little wonder Poland’s war-hungry Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski was so keen for Ukraine to keep fighting Russia, long after it became obvious that Ukraine could not win. Poland doesn’t want Ukraine to join the EU and neither do other heavily subsidised EU Member States.

  • Ukraine is bankrupt - US and European taxpayers foot the bill

    Below an article that was published in Responsible Statecraft on Wednesday. Ukraine is expending a simply extraordinary amount to prop up a war effort that it is losing. Free hand outs from the west have now been replaced with loans, as taxpayers rightly ask 'wouldn't it be better to end a losing war rather than spend billions of dollars each year which is either blown up (literally) or stolen by corrupt officials?' Despite recent indications from Zelensky that he is willing to make concessions, including accepting some form of partition along existing lines, it is clear to me that he has absolutely no desire to sue for peace any time soon. Arguments that Ukraine should wait until it is in a position of power are completely meaningless, given that every day that country's armed forces loses ground to the Russian advance. Ukraine will never have the level of resources or strength that it possesses today. So, waiting until Ukraine is strong enough is literally waiting for Godot. And, of course, the longer war continues, the longer Zelensky can remain in his job, elevated on a mountain of his own hubris, congratulated at every turn by fawning, brainless EU politicians, completely obliviously to the suffering of his people. And on that, please enjoy the article below... On Tuesday December 10, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced the disbursement of a $20 billion loan to Ukraine. This represents the final chapter in the long-negotiated G7 $50 billion Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) loan agreed at the G7 Summit in Puglia, in June. Biden had already confirmed America’s intention to provide this loan in October, so the payment this week represents the dotting of the “I” of that process. The G7 loans are now made up of $20 billion each from the U.S. and the EU, with the remaining $10 billion met by the UK, Canada, and Japan. To be clear, this U.S. loan represents no additional funding for Ukraine beyond what had already been agreed by the G7; it doesn’t raise the bar on the $50 billion pledged so far. The European Union had already made provision to fill the gap, had the U.S. not provided this lending. In that regard, it is encouraging that the U.S. is doing the right thing by following through on its earlier commitment. The U.S. loan cannot be allocated to the war effort, as it has been transferred into the World Bank which does not permit funding of military activity. This is a roll back from the U.S. position in October when it was hoped that around half of the $20 billion loan might be diverted towards Ukraine’s struggling military. In her remarks, Yellen said , “we are sending an unmistakable message of resolve by making Russia increasingly bear the costs of its illegal war, instead of taxpayers in our coalition.” But the notion that this loan won’t ultimately sit on the shoulders of U.S. taxpayers is highly speculative, and dependent on actions outside of America’s control. Repayment of the U.S. loan relies on the resilience of an EU instrument called the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism (ULCM). The ULCM disburses profits from $270 billion in frozen Russian assets in Belgium, so that Ukraine can make repayments to G7 creditor countries, including the U.S.. However, the ULCM can only do that for as long as EU sanctions maintain the freeze on Russia’s assets. In other words, once the Russian asset freeze ends, loan repayments to the U.S. will stop. U.S. officials tried to mitigate this financial risk by urging the EU to extend its sanctions renewal process against Russia from six months to three years, but failed in the teeth of a Hungarian veto. That puts repayment of the U.S. loan at the mercy of EU member states agreeing to extend the Russian asset freeze over the long-term which seems optimistic, at best. The equivalent EU loan of $20 billion includes a clause that Ukraine may ultimately have to repay the capital if the proceeds from frozen Russian assets or war reparations from Russia are not forthcoming. Yellen’s statement, therefore, that U.S. taxpayers won’t ultimately foot the bill for this $20 billion loan rests on shaky ground. Ukraine also has a track-record of not repaying its international debts. In July, Zelensky signed another declaration to defer payments on foreign debts, while a restructuring was underway. A Ukrainian agreement in July to restructure $20 billion in loans led to creditors writing off 37% of their capital. The much bigger problem, of course, is that the $50 billion G7 loan, which took six months to finalize, is just a band-aid on what Ukraine needs, just to keep the lights on in its flagging economy. According to the IMF, Ukraine’s budgetary situation is so dire that it will need between £122-£141 billion in external financing to meet its fiscal needs between 2023-2027. So, at best, the G7 loans meet 41% of that need. Unlike the EU loan, intricate details of which can be found on the Commission website , the U.S. Treasury has not revealed the details of how its loan is structured. The U.S. Treasury has simply paid the full $20 billion into the World Bank and appears to be hoping for the best. Just to be clear, loan repayments will need to be made to the U.S. government; the World Bank has pointedly made clear that it “does not handle or deal in any way with immobilized Russian assets or any investment earnings on those assets.” Where does this leave us? Anyone who thinks that Russia will simply forego its frozen $300 billion in assets in the interests of filling Ukraine’s huge fiscal gap is sorely mistaken. Russia continues to pursue through UK courts repayment of the $3 billion Eurobond paid to Victor Yanukovych’s government in December 2013, after Ukraine stepped back from signing the EU Association Agreement. Russia has consistently made it clear that it will not meet the cost of reparations as it considers that the war was precipitated by the West’s encouragement of Ukraine. Setting aside the war itself, a decade of conflict has had a devastating effect on ordinary Ukrainians. According to the World Bank , “more than a fifth of adults who were working before the invasion reported losing their jobs; some two thirds of households have neither savings nor labor income. A third of surveyed families reported modifying or skipping meals altogether. Three of every 10 Ukrainians now live in poverty.” Self-evidently, with 61% of its planned budget for 2025  earmarked for defense spending, the best way to relieve Ukraine’s dire budgetary situation (not to mention to stop the needless loss of life) will be to end the war. Rating agencies downgraded Ukraine into default territory in July, meaning that it is effectively cut off from access to new lending from international investors. Once the $50 billion from the G7 runs out, Zelensky, or whoever replaces him after a ceasefire and elections that he seems likely to lose , will need to come back for more. So, the issue of how this latest $20 billion handout to Ukraine will be paid seems entirely secondary to the point that it won’t be the end of U.S. funding to Ukraine. Despite what Secretary Yellen says, that means no end in sight to the financial burden on U.S. taxpayers from Biden’s war.

  • Stealing from Russia to fund Ukraine - Yellen's $20bn loan

    I joined Judge Andrew Napolitano on his popular Judging Freedom podcast last week, among other things, to discuss the US $20bn to the World Bank as part of the G7's $50bn funding arrangement. In the financial arrangement that has been put in place, the US gives money to the World Bank to fund non-military projects in Ukraine. Ukraine is liable for the loan and repays that loan with funds provided to it by the EU, courtesy of the profits generated by around $270bn in frozen Russian assets in Belgium. Big question; when the war ends and Russia wants its money back, who will repay the loan?

  • EU-MERCOSUR deal can reinvigorate Lisbon-Vladivostok

    The European Union and the Latin American grouping MERCOSUR recently agreed a Free Trade Agreement . If the agreement is finally ratified by European countries, it will create the largest free trade bloc in the world accounting for close to a quarter of global GDP and around 750 million people. This agreement has taken 25 years of on-off negotiations but offers the potential to reduce barriers from almost €110bn in two-way trade while also growing the business and investment relationship. It could be a win-win deal for both groupings, Trade between the EU and MERCOSUR is small compared to EU exports to the U.S., which are ten times greater . But at a time when Latin American countries are shifting focus towards greater trade with China, and as Donald Trump looks set to impose trade restrictions on European goods, it makes sense to diversify. However, there’s a hitch. Several European countries plan to block ratification of the agreement. Ratifying an FTA that allowed tariff-free access to Europe’s highly protected agricultural market, could stoke far-right sentiment across the EU. Decision makers fear exactly the sort of violent  demonstrations in Poland against the inflow of cheap Ukrainian agricultural imports in March. Poland is one of the countries currently blocking agreement of the MERCOSUR deal, along with France, Europe’s largest recipient of Common Agricultural Policy subsidies. French farmers have already come out in protest to say ‘mais non!’ to the proposed MERCOSUR agreement. Even before Michel Barnier’s government collapsed, the French Assemblée Nationale had voted to reject the EU-Mercosur deal, one lawmaker saying ‘there is no such thing as a good Mercosur agreement’. However, outside of agriculturally intensive France, Poland and the Netherlands, most European countries are in favour of the MERCOSUR deal. For Germany, it would provide for tariff-free access to precious minerals in Latin America that would be a boon to its flagging automotive industry. Free Trade Agreements are enjoying a minor return to favour led by countries outside of the U.S., which is likely to become the mother of all protectionist countries after Donald Trump comes to power. After the U.S. withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017, the remaining countries created the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership in 2018; the UK is going through the final stages of ratification to join (despite being nowhere near the Pacific). While the global COVID pandemic threw up barriers and walls between countries, further progress on global free trade offers scope gradually to tear them down. Pre-pandemic, the EU had developed a range of mutually beneficial Free Trade Agreements, for example with Japan, Vietnam and Singapore. While erroneously called a political agreement, the EU-MERCOSUR deal does not contain the political baggage that has bedevilled Europe’s attempts to forge Association Agreements with Eastern Partnership countries like Ukraine and Georgia. Helpfully, it includes none of the normative requirements on democracy, human rights and the rule of law, which more often than not are Trojan horses for the EU to impose its ways of life on other countries. For practically all of its other FTAs, the EU has focussed exclusively on trade and investment. This raises the question about the value of reigniting plans for a greater Eurasian Free Trade space. The Lisbon to Vladivostok concept died on the altar of the west’s drive to incorporate Ukraine at all costs, and as the U.S. pushed hard for Europe to buy its more expensive energy, rather than access cheap and plentiful minerals from Russia. Reinvigorated, Lisbon to Vladivostok would focus exclusively on trade and include the European Union, the Eurasian Economic Union, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and any other country in the Eurasian space that wished to participate. It would be inclusive, rather than exclusive. There are two obvious advantages to this approach. Firstly, it is abundantly clear, at least to me, that countries like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova will be unable to join the European Union on equal terms. It is not just that their membership would cause the internal EU budgetary settlement to disintegrate under the pressure of integration. It would create intolerable and, frankly, entirely predictable, political friction among EU states like Poland and France that lost their generous subsidies. EU aspirant countries, over the longer term, could gain considerable economic benefit from membership of a wider free-trade group, without the risk of dislocation, either to themselves or to Europe, caused by ill-considered enlargement. Second, aspiring EU member countries seem unlikely at any time, if ever, to comply fully with the EU’s exacting political requirements. Ukraine remains deeply corrupt as a state and has been unable to make positive progress on reform since 2014. In one of the great ironies, Ukraine’s so-called European choice has led it no closer to looking and acting like a European country. That same European choice in Georgia is manifest today in a blatant attempt at regime change, of a related type to that witnessed in Kiev in February 2014. In Moldova the Presidential election was tampered with to ensure that Maia Sandu won, by de-facto excluding a large constituency of Moldovan voters who live in Russia. Yet, despite all the goodwill and election interference from Europe, I am deeply sceptical that any of these aspiring members – Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia – could really commit to the political requirements of membership anyway. In the past week, an EU-MERCOSUR deal has offered a reminder that Europe should abandon its efforts to enlarge and integrate countries like Georgia and Ukraine. Rather, it should return its focus to the Lisbon to Vladivostok idea. This has the potential to create the largest Free Trade Area in the world, comprising over 800 million citizens. It would avoid the obvious distortions and disruption of pushing for deeper political integration with Former Soviet States with the catastrophic results we see today, particularly in Ukraine. Critically, Lisbon to Vladivostok would finally put an end to the sheer folly of expecting countries like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to make a false choice between Europe and Russia.

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