By Vestnik Kavkaza
“As the shells and missiles flew on Monday in eastern Ukraine, Europe’s foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, determined that there were no grounds for any relaxation of sanctions,” the Guardian reports. Thus the strategic plan proposed by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini was rejected. The Guardian welcomes the decision of Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel to cancel Ukrainian negotiations on the issue in Astana: “Recent attempts to get peace talks going have failed." The Minsk agreement from September 2014, according to the author, was violated by both Russia and Ukraine. The newspaper reminds that Russia has yet to fulfill its obligations under the September agreement. “There is, after all, no other European leverage available. It would be foolish and dangerous to let go of that leverage before peace has returned,” the author writes.
The Wall Street Journal published material on a similar topic titled “EU Has No Plans to Ease Russia Sanctions”. In spite of several EU countries that do behave in a more friendly way towards Russia and that have long expressed doubts about the effectiveness of sanctions and their ability to influence the Kremlin, the EU sanctions against Russia will remain. Most eastern EU members, such as the Baltic states and Poland, have taken rather tough positions against Moscow, while Hungary and Cyprus are openly more friendly to Russia. These countries have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of economic sanctions. However, during a meeting on Monday, the foreign ministers stressed that they would consider easing sanctions only on the condition that Russia starts respecting the peace plan in relation to Ukraine. The next crucial moment for the EU will come in March, when in order to renew the sanctions, it is necessary that all 28 EU member states vote in support of them. However, on Monday the ministers of foreign affairs agencies agreed to intensify efforts to counter what they call Russian propaganda in matters concerning the Ukrainian conflict.
The Boston Globe reported on recent unexpected developments in international nuclear programs in an article “Russia ends US nuclear security alliance”. It was the private diplomatic meetings where “the Russians informed the Americans that they were refusing any more US help protecting their largest stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium from being stolen or sold on the black market,” the article reads, which was an unexpected gesture and almost took the American side by surprise. There are expectations that probably many other programs will end as well. No explanation or comment has so far been received from the Russian embassy in Washington, or the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation in Moscow. "In the December document, the Russians said they are capable of securing their own nuclear facilities, out of Russia’s federal budget. But a number of former US government officials and nuclear experts expressed doubts about the Russian pledge, pointing to recent economic troubles,” the article reads.
“Eyeing Tajikistan’s Weak Spot, Russia Presses for Integration”, declared eurasianet.org. The article states that “Central Asia’s dependence on remittances from labor migrants in Russia has long given the Kremlin a powerful lever to manipulate the region’s politics. Now, new regulations are making finding work in Russia more costly and difficult for many Central Asian guest workers.” It is said that Moscow uses the migrants from former Soviet countries to make Central Asian leaders to participate in the Kremlin’s integration processes. It is enough to remember here the recent episode with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, who attempted to make Moscow pay to keep soldiers on Tajik territory, and was confronted by the thread of Tajik labor migrants to be deported from Russia. “In 2014, the Federal Migration Service deported more than 200,000 Tajik citizens who worked without proper permission or committed administrative violations," officials have been widely quoted as saying. That number is expected to grow with tighter regulations adopted this month,” the article reads. At the same time, Tajikistan does too little to create jobs in the country, reporting fictitious figures about new expected jobs, and there is also no will to speak about this openly.
