MOSCOW'S LAST WARNING

Unfortunately, the Middle-East-type scenario has acquired a "stage" of its own in Ukraine as well; the news audience is gradually getting used to reports on the fighting in that country's east and is turning its attention to other items of news. Over the last week air time has been focussed on the invading Islamists in Iraq, which is no joke, and on the footballers and fans who are enjoying the festival of sport in Brazil. Even the Russian TV news channels have considerably watered down their coverage of what were completely peaceful Russian-Ukrainian gas talks. These talks do moreover only appear to be peaceful at first glance; it has to be seen that it is precisely the issue of the "blue fuel" that has become the decisive battle in the war being unleashed in the Ukraine between Russia and the West, and to be more exact between Russia and the USA. Because only a very inattentive and very na?ve person can really believe that all this time Moscow has been making concession after concession precisely to Kiev, and not Brussels.

But this is how the situation looks on the surface. Russia is asserting that Ukraine's total debt to Russia had reached 4.5bn dollars by the start of June, at a price of 485 dollars per 1,000 cu m of gas. 

During the talks Russia offered Ukraine the same conditions that it had under [former Ukrainian President] Yanukovych: abolishing the export duty so that the price would be reduced to something like 385 dollars per 1,000 cu m. But Ukraine refused this formulation of the issue, citing the fact that the duty could be reintroduced at any moment by decision of the Russian Federation government and demanded that a completely new contract be drawn up setting a price of no more the 300 dollars per 1,000 cu m and abolishing the prohibition on the right of re-export. Moscow responded by calling Kiev's actions blackmail. As a result, European consumers are, on the one hand, already getting markedly nervous (for example, the authorities in the federal Land of Bavaria intend to demand from the German government an increase in the natural gas reserves), while, on the other hand, they are stepping up the pressure on the Kremlin (Bulgarian Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski has decided to halt the work on the [Russian-backed] "Southern Stream" gas pipeline until the European Commission withdraws its criticisms [of Bulgaria with relation to this project]).

In the view of a number of observers, the dragging out of the gas-related confrontation between Russia and the EU and in the future completely halting supplies of the "blue fuel" are extremely advantageous to the USA, which wants by so doing to look after its own energy interests, including those related to the marketing of shale gas and eventually to achieve the dependence of the Old World on Washington. Besides this, it should not be forgotten that huge deposits of shale gas have been discovered in the Donbas [Donetsk basin, Ukraine] "The energy crisis between Russia and the EU will make it possible for the Americans to easily unite the Western countries under its leadership," the Italian magazine "Limes" writes.

Moscow is obviously trying to avoid this scenario and this is possibly even connected with the series of "recent Chinese warnings" addressed to Kiev. Whether that is the case or not, Russian public opinion is getting markedly heated, ranging from the boosted patriotic mood after Crimea to the disparaging speeches being made at the moment. Whereas just a month ago they were saying that Russia had returned to the world stage as a strong player, today they are complaining about a loss of not only international, but also regional authority.

In an interview with [the American magazine] "Time" Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stated that his country needs assistance from the West, ranging from intelligence to military technologies, from closing the airspace to enforcing a sea blockade in the event of an attack. But no-one in the West is in any hurry to give Kiev a guarantee like that. This is because it is understandable that Russia is hardly likely to launch any kind of active operations. There can be no doubt that the Russian army is capable of rapidly making short work of the Ukrainian army, but then Moscow would have to expect accusations of attacking a sovereign country and be almost completely isolated in the world arena; it would have to hold onto the captured territory, provide for the functioning of the various everyday structures on it, and pay pensions and social security benefits. What guarantee is there that in conditions of extremely hard-hitting sanctions, the Kremlin's actions would receive the support of the majority of Russia's population? For Russia is integrated into the international financial system much more deeply than it may seem at first glance. Would the Kremlin be able to rely on so called allies, albeit the Eurasian Economic Union or the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

Western analysts are moreover convinced that the authorities in Moscow are acting in an underhand way. The [British newspaper] Financial Times questioned analysts, staff from the Home Office and Ministry of Defence and secret service men, who expressed admiration for Russia's actions in Ukraine. They said that some figures from specialised groups are helping the separatists in the east and then rapidly disappearing.  The opinion is being expressed that Russia is facilely intervening in the conflict in order to create the impression that things are trickling along normally, thereby supplying the army of the Donetsk and Lugansk rebels with heavy weapons. Thus on the night of 13 June the Ukrainian side stated that T-72 tanks had appeared from the direction of the Russian Federation. They were on their way from the conflict zone, transporting women, children and elderly people in order to create space for operations and to ratchet up the intensity of the military actions. Russia is also boosting its activity in cyberspace, hacking into the IT-systems of Ukraine's state institutions. In the view of a member of NATO staff, Russia is very effectively using all the instruments it can to exert pressure: intelligence, diplomacy, politics, military might and the economy.

But Russia does on an official level reject any kind of suggestion that it is involved in the events in Ukraine. For example, Putin asserted this on 4 June in an interview with the [French] TF1 TV channel. The Russian Federation has not essentially reacted to the declarations of independence by the eastern regions of the neighbouring country. There has still not been any distinct response to the fact that the self-proclaimed "Luhansk People's Republic" has made an appeal to the Russian Federation (and also to 14 states and republics) with a request to recognise its independence, while the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" is already talking about setting up a union state with Russia.

The military operations in the east of Ukraine are continuing at full speed. On 13 June an active phase in the anti-terrorist operation started in Mariupol, while fighting is still going on in Luhansk and Donetsk. There is evidence of housing estates coming under fire from heavy weapons, of the use of incendiary bombs and phosphorous-containing ammunition. The Russian media are reporting the deaths of civilians, including children.

The OSCE [Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe] Secretary General Lamberto Zannier, who visited the displaced persons' camps set up to receive the refugees from Ukraine in the Russian Federation's Rostov Region stated that, for the conflicted to be prevented, both sides need to surrender their weapons. This is a very strange statement, for this would mean that, based on the secretary general's words, the Ukrainian army would have to surrender its weapons as well. "The first step must be taken by the authorities in Kiev," the Russian Foreign Ministry responded. In his turn, [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko is continuing to assert that he has a plan for settling the situation in the country's east, but, other than general phrases, nothing concrete, and what is most  important, feasible has been heard from the Ukrainian leader. Nor is anyone answering the most important question, namely why the anti-terrorist operation started without any attempt being made at negotiations?

Against the backdrop of all that has happened, one gets to understand that someone should be made answerable for people dying: "If crimes have been committed ,then they should be investigated and those guilty of them punished," the OSCE secretary-general stated. In an exclusive interview with "Time" magazine, Poroshenko stated that Russia should be punished for the tragedy which has befallen Ukraine this year. "Those guilty of the military crimes committed in the east of Ukraine will be held responsible even at the bottom of the ocean," the chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Prosecutor General's Office, Alexander Bastrykin, promised in his turn.

How can we expect events to develop in the near future? This will depend first and foremost on what atmosphere will prevail in Kiev. Rumours are going round that the Ukrainian government is going to be reshuffled, as well as the Foreign and Interior Ministries. All the rest of the problems are at a standstill at the moment owing to the gas problems, for even if Ukraine signs an association agreement with the EU, this will provoke a reaction to Ukrainian goods on the part of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan and this means that yet another blow will be struck at the country's economy. Besides, as the Ukrainian National News Agency website reports, quoting "From-ua", it is most likely that laws will be adopted in the Ukraine in the very near future stipulating greater liability for overthrowing the legitimate government and infringing upon the state's independence and constitutional system.

Won't all that merge together to cause new popular unrest in the streets of Kiev? In that case, it is quite possible that war in the east will spread to the southern and central regions of the country.  Or when Kiev's possibilities for conducting the anti-terrorist operation run out, the east will simply become a grey zone like the Dniestr Republic [in Moldova]. But, when considering the situation in the Donbas, it is worth remembering the little recalled Kolomoyski factor, where the head [Ihor Kolomoyski] of the Dnipropetrovsk state regional administration is obviously playing his own game. The things he has said seem strange. The Ukrainian presidential administration has received a project from Kolomoyski for constructing a 1,920-kilometre-long wall along the Russian frontier; it would cost 100m euros and be built of high-strength steel with electrified barbed wire along the top. 

If, in the circumstances that have taken shape, a frontier between the EU and Russia is to unfold in the very heart of the Eurasian continent, like a new "Berlin wall", that will not be the worst outcome. For it is already clear that the political and legal mechanisms for achieving accords are seriously at a standstill, if they not completely broken down altogether, and everything is being decided by violence, blackmail and a clever game played on all fronts. If this is the state of affairs, then human sacrifices are a frightening inevitability.