FRAGILE HOPES

Emergency situations require emergency solutions. The end of March was marked with a series of important events that can have a tangible effect on the resolution of the world's number one problem—the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. There are cautious expectations that a turning point in the war in Ukraine is reachable.

The central event was the talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul, personally attended and facilitated by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As to the personal contribution of the Turkish president to the success of negotiations, a representative of the Ukrainian delegation, Alexander Chalyy, said that the talks had been unblocked thanks to Erdogan. This shows that preparations for the event have been carried out at the highest level, with the Turkish side having done everything to ensure its success.

Negotiating with hope

After long and gruelling talks in Istanbul, the head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky came out to journalists with rather unexpected results: “Ukraine refuses to join military alliances, to host foreign military bases, contingents, military exercises on the territory of Ukraine without consent of guarantor states, including Russia.

“A list of guarantor states is presented to ensure Ukraine’s status as a non-aligned and non-nuclear state. This will guarantee Ukraine's security. Security guarantees do not apply to the territories of Crimea and Sevastopol, that is Ukraine renounces its intention to return Crimea and Sevastopol through military means and states that this is possible only through negotiations. Of course, this in no way in line with our position, but this is how Ukraine has defined its position”.

Russia is also committed to drastically reduce military activities around Kiev and Chernigov. Moscow explains this decision by the need to provide a ground for more comprehensive agreements that would put an end to the conflict.

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu said that “the main missions of the first stage of the special operation are over. Now we can focus on the main goal—the liberation of Donbass”.

Alexey Arestovich, adviser to the chief of the Administration of the Ukrainian President, described Shoigu's words as a failure. “At the beginning of the military campaign, the main goals of Russians were denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine. Change in these goals shows that the Kremlin's plans have completely failed," he said.

The intermediate result of negotiations in Istanbul is the absence of any compromises from the Ukrainian side, Arestovich said. According to him, Ukraine has improved its position on all negotiating points.

"As of February 23, Ukraine was a neutral state without any guarantees and twice deceived. Declaration of sovereignty and the Budapest memorandum established neutrality, but there were no guarantees; we can see them now. Many countries are ready to provide us guarantees,” Arestovich said. 

He also said that this was an ideal treaty that improves Ukraine's position manifold, something that could not have been imagined before the war.

At the same time, Arestovich confirmed that Ukraine promised to agree with future guarantor states of its security, including Russia, holding of joint military exercises with foreign armed forces on the territory of Ukraine. However, according to him, Russia will not veto such exercises.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky also praised the results of the Istanbul talks. However, as he noted, “these positive signals do not silence explosions of Russian missiles yet”.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has prepared a package of documents for a personal meeting between Zelensky and Putin. Drafts were handed over to the Russian delegation during the talks in Istanbul, adviser to the head of the Administration of the Ukrainian President, Mikhail Podolyak, said. According to him, the key issue is the agreement on security guarantees.

Cautiously optimistic are the words of the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. He said that Ankara was working on organizing a new meeting of Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers. “There was a significant progress in Istanbul. But currently we do not see the real implementation of the results announced following the talks. A meeting between Russia and Ukraine could take place at a higher level, at the level of foreign ministers, in the next one or two weeks. We are working on this. I have discussed the issue with Sergei Lavrov and Dmitriy Kuleba,” Çavusoglu said.

In addition to face-to-face talks, there are attempts to resolve the crisis within international formats. There was a decision to hold three summits of the leading international institutions—NATO, EU and G7—in Brussels in the third decade of March, just a few days before the Istanbul talks. Needless to say, the nature of these events and decisions taken at them were also exceptional. Despite hopes, they still determine the agenda and line of conduct of the leading actors in international politics.

Do not swap horses in midstream

The date chosen for all these events was by no means a coincidence. March 24 marked the one-month anniversary of the Ukrainian conflict. Moscow refers to it as a special military operation, while in the West the operation is known as Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Although Russia has so far secured almost full control over the Ukrainian-Russian border and considerable territories of the border regions, many experts believe that it still experiences significant difficulties in achieving the main goals of the operation.

Therefore, NATO held a summit in Brussels to further focus on the continuation of alliance's support for Ukraine. The meeting was attended by the leaders of thirty full NATO states, which underlined the exceptional significance of the event and decisions taken there. After all, the Russian-Ukrainian talks did not show any hope for suspension of hostilities, while the widening scope of the war creates increasing risks for the involvement of NATO states.

Among the key decisions of the summit was that NATO leaders agreed to extend the mandate of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for another year. Amid the crisis of the global security system, the NATO Council decided not to replace its chief coordinator, a man who over the years had skilfully avoided sharp corners and solved contradictions between the member states. Stoltenberg himself tweeted that he was ‘honoured’ by the decision of NATO leaders “to extend my term as secretary general until September 30, 2023. As we face the biggest security crisis in a generation, we are united to keep our Alliance strong and our people safe”.

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was appointed to NATO's top civilian post in October 2014. Since then, his term has been renewed twice. He was due to leave his post in September 2022. However, NATO leaders decided to extend his tenure for a third time.

One important factor influencing this decision was the personal position of US President Joe Biden, who has been in close contact with Stoltenberg for the past year and has established a level of trust with him. The current US administration appreciates the performance of NATO's leadership. The current secretary general's business acumen was particularly evident during a difficult period of disagreement with Donald Trump's administration, when the US threatened not to provide political-military support to member states that were not spending enough on defence.

In that period Stoltenberg has managed to maintain a sustained dialogue with Washington, thus avoiding a full-blown crisis in NATO. Around the same period there was also an active phase of contradictions between other members of the alliance, including Turkey and France, Greece and Turkey, Turkey and the US... Today a lot of credit goes to Jens Stoltenberg for having been able to solve many of them. It is no coincidence that all the countries of the alliance felt that it was unacceptable to change the head of NATO at such a crucial time, and supported the decision to extend his mandate.

We will give weapons but will not close the sky

These were not all the main decisions taken at the summit though. NATO stated that it would provide Kiev with all the necessary military and political support, but would not "close the skies" over Ukraine and send a limited contingent of troops into the country. NATO will not send peacekeepers to Ukraine at Poland's suggestion. This could result in war with Russia, Stoltenberg made it clear. However, he assured that Ukraine would be provided with additional drones, anti-tank systems, financial and humanitarian aid, as well as the necessary equipment for protection against chemical, biological and radiological threats.

Although the NATO leadership claims that the decision was taken including after Vladimir Zelensky's emotional speech at the summit, it can be assumed that the proposals had been agreed in advance and only passed on for final approval at the summit.

Zelensky said that Ukraine needed unrestricted military assistance because the Ukrainian army had been confronting Russian troops for a month now in unequal conditions. Earlier, a number of Ukrainian officials blamed some NATO member states, including Germany and Hungary, for indecision and taking "too moderate a stance" on the issue of providing Kiev with effective military support.

Either way, it is clear that NATO decided to ensure the comprehensive strengthening of Ukraine’s military potential and improve its resistance to Russian forces. Brussels sees in the defensive Ukrainian army a serious combat potential and believes that by providing it with modern military and technical means, it can restrain the implementation of Moscow's plans.

At the same time, the NATO Summit approved the establishment of four new tactical groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. This enhances the military potential of NATO's south-eastern flank. For Brussels, it accelerates the implementation of the Eastern Europe Defence Plan.

EU and G7: Sanctions revisited

The EU and G7 summits confirmed the tough line against Moscow by Western countries and further strengthened sanctions against Russia. Thus, the EU and G7 member states agreed on a set of new sanctions against Russia in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine. One of the most painful measures for Russia, economists say, is the US decision to impose sanctions on any gold transactions related to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

Also, the UK expanded its hit list by including in it dozens of new names and entities. The G7 and EU leaders agreed to exchange information on violations of sanctions against Russia. They also threatened to retaliate against those who would try to circumvent the restrictions.

China tops the list of countries through which Russia is going to circumvent sanctions. According to the US president, who spoke at the final press conference in Brussels, China understands that its economic future is more tied to the West than to Russia. Biden also partially revealed details of his recent talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said that while he did not make threats to the Chinese leader, he ‘clearly explained’ what the consequences would be if Beijing supported Moscow in the context of Ukrainian events.

Having accepted the EU's decision to reduce Russian gas purchases as much as possible in the coming years, Biden announced an agreement to supply 15 billion cubic metres of LNG to the European Union as early as this year. The idea of complete rejection of Russian gas supplies proposed by Poland was not welcomed by a number of European states, mainly Germany and Belgium. In return, the latter proposed switching to joint gas purchases and setting of a ceiling on the purchase price of gas.

No easy way

These were not the only controversial aspects of summits. Considering the prospects of Ukraine's membership in the EU, a number of summit participants, in particular the prime ministers of the Netherlands, Hungary and a number of other heads of state opposed granting Ukraine the right to accelerated accession to the EU bypassing the established procedures. They believe this might create an undesirable precedent and generally contradict the rules of the organisation. At the same time, the European Commission proposed to introduce a norm of filling the EU gas storage facilities by 80% by November 1, 2022 and 90% thereafter.

An important agreement reached at the G7 summit was the adoption of the ‘food solidarity’ initiative. The goal is to reduce the impact of grain shortages, which are predicted to occur when supplies from Russia and Ukraine are practically cut off. Together with the African Union, the EU intends to launch the Farm Initiative, when African countries will produce agricultural crops, a significant amount of which will be shipped to the EU. Finally, the EU summit adopted the idea of creating a Trust Fund of solidarity with Ukraine, which will actually act as yet another Marshall Plan for European countries in the post-war years. The text of the adopted document calls for the start of preparations to establish the fund "without delay". The European Council also supported the idea of organising an international donors' conference to fill the Trust Fund in solidarity with Ukraine "in due time".

Three summits in one day made it clear that the West’s war of sanctions against Russia will continue and will be total. Military support to Ukraine will intensify creating the conditions for the Russian army to become even more involved in Ukraine, squandering its resources. The idea is to weaken the potential of Russia to minimise the possibility of it striking at the territory of NATO member states should the conflict continue. However, the participants of all three summits had to admit that in the new conditions it will not be easy for anyone, and the Western countries will incur significant costs from the emerging situation. The world is entering perhaps the most difficult period in its history in decades and the Brussels summits were important markers of the upcoming period.