By Vestnik Kavkaza
The Ukrainian authorities are developing a defense system in depth in the east of the country. According to ITAR-TASS, two defense lines are planned to be built. “Their main goal is to prevent intrusion of the enemy into Ukrainian territory.” It is planned to build or dig about 1.5 thousand km of trenches and communication trenches, more than 8000 fighting holes for weapons, more than 4000 bunkers and a 60-km passive obstacle. The Defense Ministry of Ukraine is also working on the formation of 11 new brigades, four regiments and squadrons to revive the combat efficiency of units which were damaged during the military operation of Kiev in Donbas. Sergei Galushko, the deputy head of the Department of Information Technologies of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, says projects on military support for Ukraine have been fulfilled by 16 countries for more than $60 million.
Andrei Kazantsev, director of the Research Center (University) of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Vestnik Kavkaza about a chance to settle the conflict in Ukraine: “We hope that some diplomatic measures will lead to positive results. There are certain hints at this in the international community. However, I think the problem is that the situation in the regions is poorly controlled by the so-called major players, who try to make peace in the macro-context. In the micro-context, military activities are taking place; and diplomatically it is very difficult to solve the situation.”
“It turns out diplomacy and military activities exist separately,” Kazantsev says. “It is a bad sign, as it shows that the situation in the regions is poorly controlled. Classical diplomacy always deals with controllable forces, regular armies. For example, there is a superpower with a regular army, on the one hand, and there is another superpower with a regular army, on the other hand. They sign an agreement, give an order, and military activities stop. In the current situation, some guerilla forces are acting or some unrecognized states, which cannot be subjects of the peacemaking process. These are complicated things. Classical diplomacy doesn’t know how to solve such problems.”
Sergei Mikheyev, the deputy chairman of the editorial council of Vestnik Kavkaza, a political scientist, is sure that the situation leads to a direct armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It comes from the logic of the geopolitical game played by the Americans in the region: “Their goal was obvious – the destruction of historically close relations through the creation of an unresisted internal conflict or (it is even better for them) making people kill each other. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in this task. And both Russia and Ukraine are responsible for this.”
Mikheyev thinks that Ukraine has made the wrong geopolitical choice: “It should have stood for a neutral status and played on the balance of interests between Russia and the West. It could live for dozens of years in such a way and benefit from this, developing and building its future. However, the Ukrainian elite was involved in the geopolitical game or it was its own desire. There was no chance that Ukraine would be safe in the geopolitical game. It could only be an instrument or a battlefield.”
Mikheyev thinks that Russia’s mistakes are also obvious: “We had been following western policy for a long time, hoping that the West would consider our interests for our historic concessions. We didn’t work with the people or the population. We didn’t improve the positive aspects which we had, but preferred to communicate with “money bags”, hoping that they would solve our problems. If I was asked what the ruling class in the wide sense of the word should be called in the post-Soviet space, I would say that these people believe in money as their God. And it is easy to deceive and manipulate such people. Ukraine has shown us how it can happen.
I think it will continue to demonstrate this. The story is not over. Continuation of the game will ruin our relations completely, as Ukraine (with all due respect to its people) can only be an instrument in geopolitics or a battlefield, in the worst case.”
