Attachment #20: Key Countries Around the World and Their Positions (Canada; US; China)
The huge international wave of support for Ukraine is unprecedented. In liberal democracies governments are under pressure to to do more to help Ukrainians defend their country, provide humanitarian support, and welcome as many refugees as possible.
Only a few nations support Putin’s actions. China, Belarus, North Korea. India and South Africa have not come out with any condemnation. Generally most free world countries have joined in condemnation and instituting sanctions. Geopolitical blocs are fragmenting the global economy with the US and market driven democracies on one side and China, Russia and other state-driven economies on another.
I’ll highlight how three key countries are dealing with the war – Canada, the US and China. Actions from another 30 or so are contained in Attachment #21.
Canada. We have been uniquely positioned to make knowledgable and moral decisions because of our roles in certain multinational organizations. As well, Canada has the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world. The Liberals seemed to move with speed and decisiveness and were at the head of the pack. Our Deputy PM, Chrystia Freeland, (who speaks both Russian and Ukranian) has led the way in some of these forums in such policy areas as restrictive measures on Russia’s central bank (to prevent it from using foreign reserves to undermine sanctions).
Re sanctions: Canada was one of the first countries in NATO to ban Russian planes from its skies. Tough sanctions have been imposed. We have been sending anti-tank weapons, ammunition and other lethal armaments, although it’s apparent we didn’t have a lot in reserve. We became the first G7 nation to ban imports of Russian oil. Then we slapped a massive tariff on Russian imports, plus selected bans on the export of certain goods and technologies. We’ve imposed sanctions on hundreds of organizations and oligarchs with ties to Putin, and on March 25 new sanctions against 160 members of the Russian Federation Council. We have a streamlined immigration process.
Re UN: Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, has been winning respect with his dead-on critique of Russia’s position. He’s called Putin “Stalin’s horrendous successor”. ”We cannot let him succeed,” he tweeted March 23. “We know (the Russians) are lying because their lips are moving,“ he’s also said. Rae has written recently in Policy Magazine: “The end of nuclear hegemony created a deadlock more profound than a raise of the hand at the (UN) Security Council. And it’s that fact that lies at the heart of the current challenge in how we deal with Putin’s aggression.”
Rae said that the way the world responds to counties that have a nuclear bomb is different than it is for those who don’t. The Western world cannot stomach the wanton killing and destruction of a nation by a cruel murderer, but how far are they prepared to go in its defence because of the fact that Russia has nuclear capability. In an interview by Gary Mason (Globe & Mail, March 26), Rae quoted the French physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal, “Justice without force is powerlessness and force without justice is tyranny.”
On April 27 the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion declaring Russia’s war on Ukraine be a genocide. It read “there is clear and ample evidence systemic and massive war crimes and crime against humanity being committed against the people of Ukraine by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, directed by President Vladimir Putin and others within the Russian Parliament.”
Re diplomacy: Calls from the federal Conservatives to expel the Russian ambassador to Canada and recall the Canadian envoy in Moscow have been resisted, which is wise. We need to maintain direct lines of communication with Russia in the faint hope that a diplomatic way out of this crisis is possible. Parliament for the moment appears eager to act in unison, a delightful sign that this kind of behaviour is possible.
Re supplying oil and gas: Canada (the world’s fourth largest oil-producing country) has some flexibility in increasing crude oil exports by about 5% through using existing pipelines and rail, probably amounting to an extra 200,000 barrels per day of oil to the US (which goes through the new Line 3 pipeline replacement project and crude-by-rail terminals), as well as natural gas equivalent to 100,000 barrels per day. This will free up oil and gas supplies in the US and elsewhere so that those countries can in turn reroute fuel to the EU. It is estimated that the Canadian oil industry spending on conventional oil and gas production will climb 36% from 2021.
Canada has also banned all imports of Russian crude oil, although they were negligible. There are some possibilities for increasing Canadian crude to the international market, particularly from Newfoundland. Crude production from the Equinor (formerly Husky Energy) site in the Bay du Nord area plus an offshore field called White Rose should be encouraged.
Quite ironically, just as Europe requires energy, Quebec’s CAQ party has banned oil and gas production outright. One of the exploration companies (Resources Utica) urged Quebec to reconsider this move as it was estimated that Quebec could replace about 20% of Russian gas supplies to Europe and ramp up production to one million cubic feet annually within two or three years. There are shale oil deposits on Anticosti Island and a huge $14-billion liquified natural gas project on the Saguenay River (proposed by GNL Quebec) that could be developed. This will be a provincial election issue this October.
Regarding our oil sands, unfortunately, the geology doesn’t lend itself to much on-the-fly improvisation. Existing projects tend to run near full capacity, and new ones take years to build, so extra production can’t be turned on quickly.
There are hard limits on the pipeline network, even with the opening last year of Enbridge’s expanded Line 3, which carries crude to refineries in the US Midwest. There will be pressures to revisit the Keystone XL pipeline (which could have carried more than 800,000 barrels per day into the US Gulf Coast) that Biden cancelled on his first day in office (citing environmental concerns, mainly its link to carbon-intensive oil sands). It’s a shame, for if Keystone XL was flowing, the US wouldn’t be trying to suck up to Venezuela and also be hoping a deal will be made with Iran for oil from them. The best scenario for the US, at least for Midwest refineries (PADD II) and Gulf Coast refineries (PADD III) is to get Canadian heavy oil, because that’s what those refineries are largely geared for.
There already is bitching from environmental groups criticizing efforts to bolster oil and gas supplies outside Russia. “Corporate interests are cynically seizing on this moment to push forward an agenda to entrench fossil fuel dominance for decade to come,” said the NGO Food & Water Watch. There are those in the environmental movement that are opposed to prolonging the life of fossil fuels under any circumstances, regardless of whether they assist in this transition away from Putin’s dirty carbons (or any transition approach such as carbon capture). The word cynical might well also apply to them.
Re military investment: Appropriate debate will take place regarding our military budget and NATO commitments. To meet them we would have to boost our annual $24-billion military budget by about $9 billion. (We fall way short of our NATO commitment of 2% of GDP – ours is at a paltry 1.39%.) Our armed forces need 10,000 more people to reach full strength. We have yet to replace our ancient fleet of CF-18 fighter jets, our outdated frigates or our retired naval destroyers. This is in contrast to our proud military history. (We fought in four major wars in the 20th century. In 1945 we had the fourth largest army in the world. We’re a founding member of NATO.) Diane Francis observed accurately in her March 14 blog: “Canada, a huge nation with more ocean frontage than any country in the world, has an army that could fit into a football stadium and a navy with a few dozen ships, no large icebreakers, and four used submarines bought from Britain 20 years ago incapable of patrolling undersea for more than short bursts of time.”
Re protection of our north: If we think we can dodge this commitment, that’s troubling. Russia is our close neighbour. Putin has claimed Arctic territory that we consider a sovereign part of Canada. They have the capability to strike this continent. We are part of NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defence Command) that was first created during the Cold War to protect against a Soviet attack. It pivoted in the 1980s to the development of the North Warning System, a string of radars built in our Arctic from the Yukon to Labrador. There is a need to determine whether we have the right systems and infrastructure, and in the right places. Our defence committee has been told that the system is “incapable of effectively responding to modern missile technology” so we need to correct that.
Re dirty money: As far as combatting Russia’s dirty money, its is known that Canada is a haven. The Cultural Commission on Money Laundering in BC suggest that Canada, with its lax laws and lack of meaningful enforcement, is such a haven. That’s got to be a Liberal government target.
63 Canadians have been placed on Russia’s sanctioned list. (Perhaps I’ll be added to the list for writing this blog!) Six former commanders of the training mission known as Operation Unifier are among them, which likely indicates how effective this mission was. The purpose of the mission was to help Ukraine transform its post-Soviet military into a modern fighting force. More than 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers were trained by Canada since 2015. One of the areas the training emphasized was in the deploying of small teams and acting in a more nimble way by empowering and trusting those further down the chain of command to make decisions.
The United States: Biden announced a ban on Russian oil imports. They are one of the top five importers of Russian refined products (and imported almost 700,000 barrels per day of their crude in 2021). It’s interesting to realize that the US had a president that had ambitions to get out of NATO (Trump called NATO “obsolete”) – and that man is still in the 2024 presidential mix!
They have revoked Russia’s “most favoured nation” status (in conjunction with the EU and Group of Seven countries. They have banned imports of Russian seafood, alcohol and diamonds.
Even before Russia’s invasion, the US signed an executive order that isolated Donetsk and Lugansk and placed sanctions on VEB, the Russian state development bank, and the military bank. Other sanctions were aimed at preventing the Russian state from raising funds on US financial markets.
On March 17, the House of Representatives voted to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus, permitting the administration to raise tariffs against them. The measure passed by a vote of 424 to 8. The eight votes against the measure came from Republican members Andy Biggs (AZ), Dan Bishop (NC), Lauren Boebert (CO), Matt Gaetz (FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Glenn Grothman (WI), Thomas Massie (KY), and Chip Roy (TX), all staunch Trump supporters.
The US still has a huge problem internally. It’s own democracy, which served as a role model for so many others, is challenged as it has not been in decades, including by those who no longer accept the results of American elections. People like Marjorie Taylor Greene are openly pushing Russian talking points, claiming that NATO is supporting Nazis in Ukraine. Russian state TV is replaying Representative Madison Cawthorn’s (R-NC) remarks calling President Zelenskyy a “thug.”
Some Republicans have taken to blaming Mr Biden for the war, arguing however implausibly that the real cause of the invasion was Kabul and American acquiescence over a German gas pipeline coming from Russia. Partisanship will be a threat to American influence abroad.
As Heather Cox Richardson, historian and professor of history at Boston College, wrote recently, “Ukraine’s people are trying to save their democracy from a criminal assault by an autocrat who has perverted his own country’s government, concentrating the nation’s wealth and power in the hands of his cronies, and silencing those who want a say in their government.” She suggests that the US is in a similar fight!
On March 16, Zelenskyy addressed a Joint Session of the US Congress from his desk in Kyiv, The telling, and clever, moment in his address came when he invoked – but never cited by name – Martin Luther King Jr.: “‘I have a dream.’ These words are known to each of you today. I can say I have a need. I need to protect our sky. I need your decision, your help, which means exactly the same.” He didn’t get his “no-fly” zone, but he got another $800 million from Biden. The same day, Biden told a reporter that he considered Vladimir Putin a “war criminal”. A few days later Biden came out with the “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” remark, as mentioned before.
China: China is part of the 12-year old bloc of countries that form BRIC (Brazil, India, China, South Africa, and of course Russia). So far no denunciations have come any of them.
Putin’s attack on Ukraine has forced President Xi Jinping into what Kevin Rudd, the Australian ex-Prime Minister called an “impossible balancing act” between his personal camaraderie with Putin and the potential blowback for China, should it be seen as endorsing an invasion condemned by most of the world. Xi is the avowed friend and ideological soulmate of Putin. For more than a decade, he and Putin have forged a respectful relationship, reflecting deepening ties between two world powers that share common cause against US military and economic might.
China does appear to be rethinking its position. It initially refused to condemn Putin’s assault, then on March 17 declined to co-sponsor a “humanitarian” resolution with Russia at the United Nations. At the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China joined Russia in vetoing resolutions. Then China abstained. Now it is refusing even to co-sponsor a “humanitarian” resolution. Consider also that Xi is facing a historic “election” in October, and there is little indication that tying China to Russia right now would help his political position.
It has been suggested that China thinks more about confrontation with America than friendship with Russia. China-Russia ties may be closer than they have been since the days of Mao and Stalin, when the Soviet Union was an overbearing but indispensable patron. That does not make Russia uniquely important. China, for example, has never recognized Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
Xi and his government maintain a pose of pseudo-neutrality towards the conflict in Ukraine, but there is a pro-Russian lean. Beijing will not impose sanctions on Russia, saying that they create new issues and threaten a political settlement. China’s approach combines pious calls for peace with the recycling of Russian arguments for the invasion, including the assertion that America is to blame, for welcoming former Soviet satellites into the NATO alliance after the end of the Cold War. The biggest question about the Sino-Russian alignment is whether it will endure in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. As The Economist wrote on January 29 “It is one thing for China to back Russia in opposing NATO enlargement as it costs it nothing to do so. It’s quite another for China to help Russia evade the economic sanctions.”
Much has been made of the meeting between Putin and Xi in Beijing on Feb. 4, after which a joint statement was issued affirming “strong mutual support for the protection of their core interests.” Russia said it endorses China’s view of Taiwan as an “inalienable part of China, and opposes any form of independence of Taiwan,” while China backed Russia in opposing the further enlargement of NATO.
The two countries at this moment in time seemed well aligned. Geographically they match, with common borders that allow trade via land (pipelines, railway, roads) without risky maritime routes. China has capital to invest, technology to sell and an ever-growing appetite for oil, gas and other commodities. One measure to track will be Chinese investment decisions, to see how the war has affected their risk assessment. In late March China’s state-run Sinop Group suspended talks for a major petrochemical investment and a gas marketing venture in Russia. As indicated by Reuters, this was heeding a Chinese government call for caution as sanctions mount.
They are different in size: China’s economy is roughly six times the size of Russia’s. China is Russia’s top trading partner but Russia is not even among China’s top ten. Russia’s economy, though ailing, complements China’s, offering natural resources that can be supplied. (Russia is China’s second-largest oil supplier and third-largest gas supplier.) Both see a world order being reshaped by American weariness and self-doubt, creating chances to test and divide the democratic West.
The notion that NATO is a collective defence pact which expanded in response to demand from former communist-bloc countries fearful of Russian bullying is almost unknown in China. Instead, the Atlantic alliance is seen as a tool of American aggression that is “in perpetual search of an enemy”, to quote a Chinese essay on Ukraine shared widely in recent days. In Beijing, cynical voices argue that China may gain from Putin’s aggression, if it forces America to pay more attention to Europe and less to the Indo-Pacific. China wants a sphere of influence in Asia in which its writ goes unchallenged by America. As a result, it has made its peace with Russian imperialism. (From the March 1/22 Economist)
The consequences of Putin’s gamble should serve as a warning of what Xi Jinping can expect if it uses force to subdue Taiwan. This self-governing democracy that China claims as its territory, could be quite a swallow.
China has helped Russia reduce its vulnerabilities to sanctions. To help Russia evade sanctions, China would have to offer a viable substitute to the American dollar. But the Chinese money – the renminbi (or yuan, they are often used interchangeably) – is barely used outside of China, with only 3% of the world’s business using it. Using the Chinese yuan for some payments rather than dollars has always been limited by Chinese capital controls. Also much of China’s own economy depends on the US dollar. China is the world’s largest exporter, and is paid for its goods mainly on dollars. Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist, said “China will not save the sinking boat of the Russian economy but it could perhaps allow it to float a little longer and sink a little more slowly.”
There is another scenario in which China could be financially involved. As the values of the companies retreating from Russia decline, and they are now rapidly, China could scoop them up. For example, as American and European oil and gas companies such as Shell and BP exit their joint ventures, Chinese state-owned buyers could emerge.
As said previously, China’s economy is roughly six times the size of Russia’s. China is Russia’s top trading partner but Russia is not even among China’s top ten.
Attachment #21: Other Countries and their Involvement
Western Europe
Germany has quickly changed decades of policy. Germany has been a slave to cheap Russian gas, to the point that it is one of the few coastal countries on the continent without a liquified natural gas import terminal. The reality has been that Germany is the EU’s No 1 financier of Putin’s war. While former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been described as one of Putin’s useful idiots on the energy front (he became a friend of Putin and described him as a “flawless democrat”), it was his successor, Angela Merkel, the chancellor from 2005 to the end of last year, who took Mr. Schroeder’s Putin-friendly stand and intensified it.
However, they have acted decisively. The day of the Russian invasion, Germany halted the mammoth Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Moscow. In March the German Foreign Minister pledged that Germany would stop importing oil from Russia by the end of 2022, and wean itself off Russian natural gas as soon as possible. In the short term, that may mean finding alternative suppliers for fossil fuels, including the US. The crisis has only reinforced Germany’s determination to get off fossil fuels entirely, and to accelerate the Energiewende – the clean-energy transition it began some 30 years ago. The government has announced plans to give up coal entirely by 2030, eight years earlier than the target set by the previous government. It now aims for Germany to get 80% of its electricity from renewable energy by then, up from the previous goal of 65% – and nearly double the 42% share it supplied in 2021.
Then their coalition of social democrats, greens and liberals shed 30 years of pacifist irresolution. The country broke a decades-long ban on arming combatants in wars by directly sending anti-tank weapons, armoured vehicles, ammunition and fuel to Ukraine. They agreed to heavy sanctions and the removal of Russia from the SWIFT banking network. In the blunt words of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz: “Putin wants to create a Russian empire.”
They then went further. As Doug Saunders said recently in the Globe & Mail, Germany would “reverse the non-confrontational, trade-based relationship it has almost continuously held toward Moscow since 1969; use an extraordinary fund of 100-billion euros to modernize and arm up its military to levels not seen since the peak of the Cold War; raise military spending to more than 2% of its national economy for the first time; quickly retool its energy infrastructure to end its use of Russian gas as its main source oil heating; and sidestep its constitutional ban on major government debt to finance these mammoth changes.”
This is huge. It reverses a broad policy of non-militarism since the end of the Nazi era in 1945. German public policy has embraced drawing authoritarian countries to the east away from violent or repressive positions through trade and dialogue. Even the Green Party in the coalition that governs Germany has agreed to measures anathema to them in normal times (increased coal and natural-gas reserves, building new liquified natural-gas terminals to bring fuel from overseas, etc). They want “freedom energy” through alternative energy that “frees us from dependencies. Even their ill-advised reduction of, and eventual ban on, nuclear energy sources has been put on hold, if doing so proved crucial to reducing its dependence on Russian gas.
Further, in Berlin, the Green vice-chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck, announced the reopening of coal plants to offset Russia’s decision to sharply reduce gas supplies. Germany at some point has to abandon its Ostpolitik, or eastern policy, that is based on the idea of bringing Russia closer to Europe and ensuring the continent’s stability
France. Presidential incumbent center-left Emmanuel Macron has positioned himself as Europe’s indispensable head of state – the only one truly capable of mediating between Putin and Biden. On March 4 he spoke to Putin for over an hour. Under Marine Le Pen, the far-right National Rally (previously National Front), which espouses a political outlook akin to Putin’s own, has received financial support from Russian banks. The anti-capitalist far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a long-time apologist for Putin’s crusade against NATO expansionism. Macron’s re-election looks a certainty. (Since I wrote this, France re-elected its centrist President Macron with a comfortable margin. However the French far right has dramatically increased its share of the popular vote in each election since 2012. Macron’s second term could be rocky.) However in the recent outcome of the French parliamentary election, Macron lost his absolute majority. Marine Le Pen’s did remarkably well. It now dominates the far right.
France is aiming for “total energy independence”. Nuclear power is back in fashion; France plans to construct six new plants. Macron reiterated that France and Europe need to eventually achieve food independence, a key element of his re-election campaign agenda.
Italy: They are vulnerable. While the EU’s third-largest economy, they import about 90% of their gas, with Russia being the biggest supplier. They have no nuclear power and little hydro power. They initially were inclined for sanctions to be very concentrated on narrow sectors, and without including energy. Also Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s coalition is bitterly divided over sending arms shipments to Ukraine.
United Kingdom. They have said they would phase in a ban on Russian oil over several months. Interestingly, many experts believe that there was a Russian hand in shaping the 2016 British vote to leave the European Union. Putin could barely hide his glee when Brexit happened. They are madly focussing on future energy independence. On March 21st Britain said it would build a new generation of nuclear reactors at “warp speed”.
Switzerland. Even Switzerland has found it impossible to maintain its neutrality in the face of strong public opinion. It announced on February 28th that it would freeze Russian financial assets in the country, which are reckoned to total some $11 billion. Promising sanctions aimed at banks, entities it holds most dear, is quite a significant move.
The Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania): Before these countries joined the EU and NATO in 2004, these countries were part of the Soviet Union (Latvia and Estonia are both home to sizeable Russian minority populations). They are sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, and border countries to Russia on their east and Germany to the south (of Lithuania). There is a fear that if Putin isn’t stopped in Ukraine, the Baltics (plus Poland and Moldova), are at risk.
Their only land connection to the EU and NATO is a strip of territory knows as the Suwalki Gap, where Lithuania meets Poland. This corridor is also the shortest point between Belarus, a close ally of Russia, and the Russian port of Kaliningrad, a separate piece of Moscow’s territory on the Baltic Sea. The gap is a major concern for NATO. If Russia were to take it, the Baltics’ land connection with mainland Europe would be severed. If that were to happen Baltic leaders worry, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia would be cut off like West Berlin, the Cold War-era Western enclave within East Germany.
Putin has already warned Nordic countries against new rapprochement with NATO. (Russia’s Foreign Ministry late February said Finland and Sweden face “military and political consequences” if they join the Western military alliance.) He is also targeting the Russian-speaking populations of these countries (and of Poland, etc.) to garner support. In 2016, the Baltics successfully advocated for the implementation of Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) missions in each of the Baltic countries and Poland, to bolster the presence of NATO in the region. It has been postulated that without those missions Putin may have targeted one or all of the Baltic states.
Canada had led NATO’s Latvian mission and where it’s currently the site of our biggest military deployment. We will shortly have nearly 700 troops as part of a five-year-old NATO effort to deter Russian aggression. We lead a multi-national NATO battle group there.
I’ll relate a personal anecdote when travelling in Estonia. As background: the country has had a complicated history. Briefly, in 1710 they were under Russian rule (Peter the Great, etc.). They fought a successful war of independence against Soviet Russia in 1918-20. In 1940 they were occupied by the Soviet Union; then for the period 1941 to 1944 by Nazi Germany. They were then retaken by the Soviets who embarked upon a massive Slavic migration through a policy of Russification by encouraging Russians to settle there and in the Baltics. Finally in 1991 Estonia declared independence. (Each of the Baltic countries has declared itself to be the restoration of the sovereign nation that had existed from 1918 to 1940, emphasizing their contention that Soviet domination over the Baltic states during the Cold War period had been an illegal occupation and annexation.)
So, they’ve been around the horn, but the revealing conversation we had was with a lady who guided us about the capital, Tallinn. “Estonians feel they were conquered by the Russians; they say they liberated us. The Germans were civilized compared to the Russians.” She dislikes the Russians from her “very core”; there was a visceral passion in her voice.
The entry of Finland and Sweden will help secure the Baltic Sea and fortify NATO’s ability to defend the Baltic states.
Lithuania: Ingrida Simonyte, Lithuania’s prime minister, stated recently that “the crisis is not in Ukraine – it is in Russia, and it has been deepening for decades. Russia’s aggression began long ago, and not just against Ukraine. The Kremlin used energy as a means of political pressure and employed cyber-attacks, hostile propaganda, proxy wars and, eventually, missiles. What we witness now is not the Ukraine-Russia war but the continuation of Russia’s war against Ukraine that started in 2014. It was de facto declared on the entire West in December 2021, when Mr Putin issued his ultimatums.”
Finland and Sweden: through the Cold War and the decades since, nothing could persuade Finns and Swedes that they would be better off doing NATO – until now. The Ukraine invasion has persuaded these Nordic neutrals that now that might be a good idea. For the first time, more than 50% of Finns support joining. A similar poll showed those in favour of joining NATO outnumber those that don’t.
Pushing for energy independence, along with a mindset to be always sure the country has options, Finland just started their first nuclear power plant (the Olkiluoto 3) in more than 40 years. Privately owned and operated it will produce about 14% of the country’s power supply. A second plant planned for the north of the country, has the Russian state nuclear energy corporation as a backer; it is now on hold. Of the total 5.53 million population of Finland, only 30,000 have Russian citizenship and only 1.5% speak Russian – interesting for a country that shares a 1,300 km-long border with Russia.
Southeast Europe (the Balkans). Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey. They have been a key target of Russian hybrid strategies within Europe. Simmering discontent in the Balkans over economic stagnation, lack of progress to EU membership, persistent ethnic tensions, and Russian cultural links have made the subregion a ripe target for Russian hybrid strategies. Russia is widely alleged to have orchestrated the attempted coup against a pro-NATO government in Montenegro in October 2016.
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia’s ambassador to this country just warned that Russia could treat this Balkan country the same way it is treating Ukraine if it decides to join NATO.
Bulgaria. In 2012, the Bulgarian government cancelled a license for Chevron to explore its shale gas reserves under pressure from Russian-backed protestors. Business networks with Russian financial backing have also played a prominent role in shaping government policy in its capital Sofia and across the region. The country has a new liberal government that took office in the fall of 2021; they have cut many of their ties to Moscow and supported punitive measures against the Kremlin. It has hosted western fighter jets at a new NATO outpost on their Black Sea coast. On April 27 Russia cut off its natural gas to this country (as well as Poland), with the rationale that they refused to pay in rubles as Putin has demanded of “unfriendly” nations.
Croatia. In 2016, Croatia, a NATO member, was also wracked by scandal when it was revealed that a former deputy prime minister had received campaign funding from Russian sources.
Serbia. President Aleksandar Vucic has refused to explicitly condemn Russia’s invasion. Serbia depends on Russian gas, but does far more trade with Germany and China. Vucic claims he wants to take Serbia into the European Union but he has spent recent years cementing ties with Russia, a long-time ally. On May 29 he announced that he has secured an “extremely favourable” natural gas deal with Russia. Serbia is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas, and its main energy companies are under Russian majority ownership. It is not clear how Serbia would receive the Russian gas if the EU decides to cut off the Russian supply that travels over its member countries.
Serbian troops are trained by American ones and exercise with both NATO and Russia. According to one poll, 60% of Serbs blame America for the war, and only 26% blame Russia. In the capital, Belgrade, Putin t-shirts are on sale alongside baseball caps sporting Russia’s wartime z logo.
Vucic is in an awkward position. He condemns the Russian invasion and says he supports Ukrainian territorial integrity just as much as he “loves” Serbia’s own. Western countries are hypocritical for supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, he implies, at the same time that most recognize the independence of Kosovo, which Serbia regards as its own. Russia has for years worked on deepening ties with the Orthodox Serbs of the region, many of whom like Russia for historical reasons even if they choose to work, study and holiday in Western countries. Bitterness over NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 plays a big role.
Slovenia. This small country has been led by PM Janez Jansa, a close ally of Viktor Orban (Hungary’s PM) who has been making it quite clear that he intended to dismantle democracy. (He was an admirer of Donald Trump and insisted that Trump won the 2020 election.) He was pushing Slovenia hard right and away from the EU (and undermining the rule of law, the media, and the judiciary.) Fortunately on April 24 he lost to a new political party (the Freedom Movement) that’s socially liberal and pro-European. The new foreign minister has said their focus will be more on France, Italy and Germany and less on alliances with Poland and Hungary. She also suggests give EU candidate status for North Macedonia and Albania.
Turkey, the Bosporous and traffic in and out of the Black Sea: Turkey has blocked Russian ships from entering the Black Sea through the narrow ship channels it controls. It has called Russia’s invasion a “war”, and under the Montreux Convention (a 1936 pact that allows the country to control its Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits) the straits will be blocked. The convention allows Turkey to close those waterways to warships when it is at war or is threatened. Recognizing the conflict as a war means Turkey can use the convention to bar the Russian navy. This is all very awkward for Turkey, as they rely on Russia for tourists, fuel, agriculture, as well as a new nuclear power plant.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed strong views against Sweden and Finland’s entry into NATO. He has accused the two Nordic countries, in particular Sweden, of serving as a refuge for the “terrorists” of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In theory, Turkey has every right to block Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO. As per Article 10 of its founding treaty, the two Scandinavian countries must convince all 30 members of the organization of the merits of their application. He has since relented and Sweden and Finland are now in the NATO queue. (The two countries agreed to lift their arms embargo against Turkey, clamp down on the financing of the PKK, “address” Turkey’s requests for the extradition and deportation of Kurdish activists, and amend laws to facilitate the extradition of terrorism suspects. In return, Turkey now supports their application to join the alliance.)
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Ankara has been trying to maintain good relations with the two opposing countries on which its economy is heavily reliant. The Turks and the Russians also share the Black Sea and common interests in Syria. Erdogan supports Ukraine but is careful not to go too far.
Turkey, by the way is not a member of the European Union. It is a “candidate” and has been in the queue since 1987. While it’s a long, complicated process the real problem is that the EU links the stalled negotiations to the deterioration of democracy in Turkey, including crackdowns on civil society, the lack of rule of law, judicial interference, and human rights abuses (all referred to in the latest report by the European Commission on Turkey). President Erdoğan has asked the EU to relaunch membership negotiations. Erdoğan’s director for EU Affairs and deputy minister of foreign affairs has said recently “In the face of the Russian aggression, we have seen the need for a strong Europe and Turkey.”
Eastern Europe Countries
All the countries of Eastern Europe were once part of the communist eastern bloc of countries led by the USSR during the Cold War: Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia (Slovak Republic), Ukraine and Russian Federation. Russia is the largest and most populous country in Eastern Europe; Moldova the smallest.
Belarus: The pro-Moscow President Alexander Lukashenko (who claims he once again won an election in Belarus in 2020) stole the election and cracked down in a draconian way on the peaceful protests that followed. (There are many who struggle to understand why Western politicians and media still refer to Lukashenko as the president of Belarus.) He had Mr Putin’s backing and now he is complicit in Russia’s aggression.
Many analysts suggest that nearly losing control over Belarus spooked Putin and has made him more bullish on his Ukranian strategy. Belarus has permitted Russian troops to assemble and attack Ukraine from its land. Lukashenko has stated that his country has no plans on joining the fight. Having said that, a Ukrainian military official said Belarusian troops joined the war March 1 in the Chernihiv region in the north. Lukashenko has just stage-managed a referendum that would allow him to extend his rule for another 13 years, while also allowing him to end his country’s status as a non-nuclear state.
Belarusians voted last month to allow the country to host both Russian forces and nuclear weapons permanently, though US officials have emphasized that they have not yet seen any evidence of Russia moving nuclear weapons or preparing to. Western leaders said they would not recognize the legitimacy of the vote. The referendum has been described as “neither a viable – nor credible – path forward for Belarus.”
Lukashenko has warned that Poland’s proposal to deploy a western peacekeeping force in Ukraine “will mean World War III”.
Central Europe. Kremlin influence in Central Europe, especially with US allies such as Hungary, the Czech Republic (Czechia), and Slovakia, is grounded in historical links to the Soviet empire. Russian influence in these countries is often derived from Russia’s key role in the energy sectors of these countries, but Moscow has also used other means to influence the region’s policies. In 2015 and 2016, the strain of the European migration crisis opened the door to even deeper Russian involvement in the region, as anti-EU and anti-immigrant sentiment rose. Now for example Hungary, whose Prime Minister had dallied with Putin, is on board.
On March 23 NATO leaders agreed to deploy four new battlegroups to Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.
Poland. Stalin had advocated the creation of a “Soviet ‘sphere of influence’ in Central Europe, starting with Poland, in order to provide the Soviet Union with a geopolitical buffer zone between it and the western capitalist world”.
Before Poland joined the EU in 2004, it was relatively poor, struggling with terrible infrastructure and shabby technology, and was quite insular. After joining, EU structural funds came pouring in with roads, schools and other bits of infrastructure and the wealth curve climbed. By 2018 Poland’s GDP per capita was more than 80% higher than in 2003.
It is likely that had Poland not been able to join NATO and come under its nuclear guarantee, it would have its own nuclear weapons by now. As Gwyne Dyer said in his July 2 Opinion piece “Given the county’s long history of subjugation and brutalization by Russia, the Poles would have seen any other course as sheer madness.“
One quarter of NATO’s troops are stationed here. The country has increased its defence budget to 3% of its GDP (vs the 2% requirement of NATO). It has bought 250 American M1 tanks. They have also agreed to give all of its MiG-29 mightier jets to the US; through this arrangement they can be then used by Ukraine. On March 16, the leaders of Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia thumbed their noses at Putin when they visited Kyiv itself by train to show their support for Ukraine. They traveled to the city despite ongoing Russian shelling.
Poland, in late March, announced steps to end all Russian oil imports by the end of the year. On April 27 Russia pre-empted this and cut off its natural gas to this country (as well as Bulgaria) with the rationale that they refused to pay in rubles as Putin has demanded of “unfriendly” nations. The Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that he believes Poland’s support for Ukraine – and the new sanctions imposed by Warsaw on April 26 – were the real reason for the gas cut-off. Poland has been working for many years to line up other suppliers. Also the country is heading into the summer, making gas less essential for households.
Hungary. The country is one of the new-model “soft” dictatorships that look like democracies but is actually run by a dictator Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He has been a strong supporter of Putin. He has managed to control all of the media (he made them unprofitable and then got his rich friends to buy them cheaply – thus they sing his praises) and has gerrymandered the election districts. He also extended citizenship to more than one million ethnic Hungarians and gave them access to generous social benefits; 95% vote for him. With the war he has put the gathering opposition coalition into a bind, claiming they want to send Hungarian troops into Ukraine, which of course is a lie (Hungary couldn’t send troops in even if it wanted to; it’s a member of NATO).
He’ll likely get re-elected on April 3. (He did for the fourth consecutive term.) On May 24 he assumed emergency powers in order to respond more quickly to “challenges created by the war”. Orban wants to keep Hungary out of the war. There is a large Hungarian community living in Ukraine, and while they don’t support the war there are tensions. For example in 2019 legislation was passed establishing Ukranian as the county’s only state language, mandating its instruction from middle school onward and obligating citizens to be conversant. Putin has used this and has accused Kyiv of a “policy to root out the Russian language and culture and promote assimilation.”
Moldova. Ironically the Putin attack on Ukraine will push this former Soviet state toward Europe. It is a landlocked country about half the size of New Brunswick, wedged between Romania (to the west), Ukraine (to the north) and the unrecognized Russian-occupied splinter territory-state of Transnistria (to the east). It is very poor and has a history of systemic corruption. In 1991, as the dissolution of the Soviet Union was underway, the Moldavian SSR declared independence and took the name Moldova. They have (for the first time since their independence) elected a pro-European PM, although public support for joining NATO remains modest. As a result of Putin’s attack, they have closed their airspace.
Central Asian Countries – the “Stans”
The “Stans”, as the region’s five post-Soviet states are known, are, broadly speaking, allies of Russia. But the aggressive expansionism of their former colonial master is testing that friendship to the limit. None of the countries has condemned the invasion. But nor has any offered public support. At the March 2nd vote in the UN General Assembly deploring the invasion, three abstained and two simply did not show up.
Kazakhstan: the biggest and richest of the lot, has long cultivated warm relations with Russia. Once part of the Soviet Union, it shares a long border with Russia and counts among its citizens a large ethnic-Russian minority. It is a member of a collective-security treaty with Russia, along with a handful of other countries including Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Kyrgyzstan: hosts a Russian military base, has come closest to offering (muted) support for Russia. It has millions of Kyrgyz migrants working in Russia and is remittance-dependent.
Tajikistan: is also remittance-dependent; it has maintained a studied silence.
Turkmenistan: is quite isolationist and barely acknowledges what is happening in the outside world.
Uzbekistan: on March 17, became the first Central Asian country to openly support the territorial integrity of Ukraine and condemn Russia’s “military actions and aggression.”
African
South Africa: part of BRIC, but not a member of the UN Security Council, it has been silent. The biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it was appalled by the governments silence. The country is caught on the horns of dilemma, both as a member of BRIC being vulnerable to hydrocarbon supply, and on top of that significant increases in food prices (they import half of their wheat, for example).
Central African Republic and Mali. The infamous Wagner Group of Russian mercenaries, overseen by an oligarch close to Putin, protects presidents and joins local security forces in repressing dissidents.
Sudan.This is perhaps the most vulnerable African country and close to economic collapse; it will likely suffer huge fuel and food prices. It is highly dependent on Russian and Ukrainian wheat, and has a Russian-backed junta. Wagnerites are reportedly in cahoots with the repressive generals who removed a popular civilian prime minister in October. They removed him as civilian rule would deprive them of corrupt proceeds from their many commercial ventures. Putin has stood with the key general Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemeti), who was in Moscow at the start of the war. Now Russia, in the midst of its invasion, is looking to expand the reach of its warships on Sudan’s shores. Moscow want to build a new naval facility at Port Sudan on the Red Sea. A base there would give Russia access for the first time below the southern entrance to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. The free world hardly wants Russia encroaching upon such important shipping lanes.
Eritrea, a gulag state, joined Russia, Belarus, North Korea and Syria in voting against the UN condemnation motion
Other African countries. There are three non-permanent African representatives on the UN Security Council (Gabon, Ghana and Kenya.) The vote on March 2nd at the UN General Assembly to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine suggests many are hedging their bets. Of the 54 African countries, 28 backed the motion but 17 abstained and eight were no-shows.
The votes at the UN partly reflect historical ties between Russia and ruling parties, especially in southern Africa. The liberation parties that still run Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe saw the Soviet Union as an ally in their fight to end white rule, and consider Russia to be its successor. All abstained in the UN vote. But Africa’s relations with Russia are mainly about self-interest, not history or ideology.
Other Countries
Saudi Arabia. Will not help ease the Russia-induced energy crisis by doing what it does best: pumping more oil. Neither will the United Arab Emirates (UAE), by the way. According to a story in The Atlantic, the next king of Saudi Arabia, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS, as he’s universally known) is tired of being ostracized over the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and that potentially affects his relationship with the US. Saudi Arabia is a crucial, if exceedingly fickle, ally of the United States; it is also the owner of the worlds largest accessible oil reserves. The country is also getting closer to China. Saudi Arabia is keen to preserve OPEC+, an alliance of big producers of which it and Russia are the biggest.
Qatar. Is one of he world’s largest producers of liquified natural gas (LNG). They have signalled that they can offer significant political and economic assistance to Western partners, and have suggested that they could direct more gas in the future to Europe. They have sought a largely neutral stand on the conflict. Qatar has the largest US air base in the Middle East, and was designated a major non-NATO ally of the US last month – a status neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia have been awarded.
Other Middle East. Self-interest and fence-sitting prevail. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) shocked America by abstaining in the UN Security Council on February 25th. The Arab League’s statement on the war three days later did not even mention Russia. Though their governments voted in favour of the General Assembly motion, officials in Egypt and other Gulf states argue that this is not their war: they have no formal alliances with either side. Egypt is the region’s second-biggest recipient of American military aid. But President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has sought to diversify, including by buying Russian fighter jets.
Syria. President Bashar al-Assad, who has relied on Russian support, appears now to be rethinking that reliance and is reaching out to rebuild former alliances. He has recently visited the United Arab Emirates for the first time since 2011, when the Syrian war broke out.
Having said that, it appears that Russian-trained Syrian fighters have signed up to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine. Russia has been actively recruiting in Syria and so far about 40,000 people have registered – 22,000 with the Russian military and about 18,000 with the Russian private contractor Wagner Group. “Russia is preparing for a greater battle” in Ukraine and Syrian fighters are likely to take part, said a Syrian army defector. Recruits have been promised a monthly income of US$600, a huge sum of money amid widespread unemployment and the crash of the Syrian pound.
Israel. Has condemned the war but not to the point of joining the West’s sanctions campaign. Israel apparently fears provoking the ire of Putin, compromising the economic ties between the two countries and – crucially – the opportunity to bomb Iranian targets in Syria, whose airspace is controlled by Russia.
The country is going out of its way to attract Russian and other former Soviet Jews, many of whom are highly educated. From 1989 when the Soviet Union began to crumble and about 2010, Israel absorbed one million immigrants from Russia and other former Soviet republics. This was enormous when you consider that Israel’s population at the time was five million, so it reshaped the country (for example the traditional left-right balance). Since the war started tens of thousands have relocated, many of them wealthy, some exceedingly so. The number may be around 40,000, of whom more than 5,000 are millionaires. So Russia is losing a lot of smart people, and money.
Australia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan joined in sanctions against Russia.
Japan: Has changed course and joined in sanctions against Russia. As The Economist said on March 4, “The change in mood …has been particularly striking. Over the past decades it has tirelessly wooed Russia, in part to counterbalance China but also in the hope of settling the problem of four northern islands seized by the Soviet Union. Shinzo Abe, the former Prime Minister, met Mr. Putin 27 times… Now under Kishida Fumio, Japan has frozen the share of Russia’s central bank reserves held in the country and is urging fence-sifters to take a clearer stance against its former pal.” This same Shinzo Abe, recently suggested that Japan should be open to nuclear sharing. That is, playing host to US weapons on Japanese territory. This from a man who led a country once devastated by nuclear bombs. There was strong push back.
BRIC (Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Russia)
BRIC allies of Russia: Putin expects the 12-year old bloc of countries that form BRIC (Brazil, India, China, South Africa, and of course Russia) to cushion the blow of Western actions; when Russia annexed Crimea they abstained from a UN vote condemning Russia’s actions. So far no denunciations have come any of them, only brief and vague remarks. India called for “restraint” but made no mention of Russia’s attack. They recently signed a flurry of military and energy agreements, including a 10-year defence co-operation agreement.