Russia says chance of Ukraine deal with West

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With the crisis between Russia and Ukraine entering a decisive week, Vladimir Putin’s government has sent signals of diplomatic openness to the West.

It’s a repetitive pattern, which reinforces the suspicions of those who believe that Putin means he’s ready for war but doesn’t actually intend to start one.

In the opposite reasoning, voiced by critics of the Russian mainly in the US and UK, there is the fear that he is only buying time to prepare a military action against his neighbor.

Whatever the truth, the signal was twofold, given by ministers of his government in televised meetings in the Kremlin – that is, it was intended to send a public message.

In the first, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia must continue negotiating with the West, and that “there is a possibility of an agreement”.

He told the chief that the US had presented “concrete proposals” to reduce tensions, but that NATO (a military club led by Washington) and the European Union had not yet followed that path.

After saying that Russia should not be swayed by the West in its demands, which are basically to keep Ukraine out of NATO and limit the military position of former Communist members who joined the bloc after 1999, he got to the point.

“I think there’s always a chance [de um acordo]. And it seems to me that our possibilities are far from exhausted. At this point, I suggest that we continue to work on them,” Lavrov said.

Afterwards, he received Serguei Choigu (Defense), who played in two fields. On diplomacy, he reported that “part of our military exercises is already over”, a password that could mean some de-escalation.

Since November, Putin has concentrated some 130,000 troops around Ukraine, including 30,000 in maneuvers now in Belarus and a naval exercise that began its active phase on Monday in the Black Sea.

If the troops do return to their original barracks, Putin could say he’s just done what he promised and the West can claim some victory.

On the other hand, Choigu warned of an incident over the weekend when Russian forces based in Vladivostok spotted an American submarine prowling Moscow’s territorial waters in the Pacific.

The Pentagon has denied that its vessel was driven away by a Russian destroyer, as circulated in the Moscow press, but the case shows that tension is everywhere.

With that, Russia keeps heating up, so to speak, but tells the West that the “imminent invasion” sung by the US over the past week would not be that imminent.

Ukraine continues to denounce alarmism, aware of the economic damage it suffers. Its ambassador in London, however, had to backtrack after telling the BBC that the issue of NATO membership could be re-discussed – a concession to end the crisis now, if real.

The fear of alarmism in Washington is palpable: the British government has called an emergency meeting and more embassies are reducing their numbers in Kiev.

“The Russian position is the classic case of hitting with one hand and stroking with the other,” political scientist Konstantin Frolov said in his Moscow office.

He does not believe in the invasion of Ukraine in Western terms, but does not rule out some one-off military action involving areas held by pro-Russian separatist rebels in Donbass (eastern Ukraine).

A signal in this direction was given by the Duma (Lower House of Parliament), which officially started the debate to suggest the recognition of the two rebel “republics”, Lugansk and Donetsk.

That would have big implications, not least because Moscow has already distributed 700,000 passports to citizens of these places, who are mostly ethnic Russians.

There, one would expect the Ukrainian reaction. If it were military, the republics could ask Putin for military help – as their leaders have already suggested, since only 10,000 of the 35,000 soldiers there would be in battle condition.

In this case, the Kremlin would say that it did not invade, but helped allies, causing damage to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and perhaps creating the climate for the installation of a government less resistant to Moscow – or the opposite, this is the risk.

Under the Minsk Accords, which established a fragile ceasefire in 2015, separatists would be entitled to a certain autonomy, which in practice could mean the end of their chances of joining NATO and the EU, whether due to territorial conflict or the right to veto in such decisions.

That’s why Kiev never implemented them, despite having signed it, alleging coercion at the time. Today, European powers like France want the terms adopted, which are deliberately vague and favoring a Russian reading.

Another country involved in them, Germany, decided to join the game after Emmanuel Macron felt some embarrassment by taking messages from Putin to Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine last week.

This Monday, the new German Prime Minister, Olaf Scholz, visits Kiev. On Tuesday, he will go to Moscow to meet Putin.

The Germans are one of the more restrained actors in this drama, as they have a great interest in the Russian natural gas they consume – the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is ready, waiting for the crisis to pass to start operating.

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