One Steele memo says the Kremlin was behind the hacking of DNC emails, claiming these were released via WikiLeaks for reasons of “plausible deniability”. Everyone should fasten their seatbelts." Parts of the dossier have been stood up and in places it looks prophetic. This is undoubtedly a high-stakes game, but will Russia risk being isolated by the West or the possibility of a return to the kind of Cold War hostilities seen during the heyday of the Soviet Union? Or is this just a ruse on Moscow’s part to keep the West second-guessing? Is there a way out for both sides while still being able to save face? The confrontation seems at its peak now – despite an agreement to hold talks next year – with the Russian military pitted against western sanctions. But he said something more telling – that Washington “should understand that we have nowhere further to retreat to”. In his speech, Mr Putin drew attention to Russia’s military might. But it knows that Washington won’t meet these demands, and therefore it is raising the temperature. It wants Nato to provide legally binding guarantees – not just verbal ones – that it will not deploy forces or weaponry in Ukraine or admit Ukraine into its fold. Moscow blames the West for the current crisis, given that it believes the US is encroaching on Russia’s sphere of influence – that, too, with its missiles, as Mr Putin has put it. Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during his annual news conference in Moscow on Thursday. They are focusing on a possible sanctions regime aimed specifically at the country’s high-tech sector. The US and Europe, on the other hand, plan to pressure Russia economically. What will happen if the talks fail? The Russian plan, as Mr Putin laid it out in his speech at the Ministry of Defence, is essentially a military one and includes pre-emptive strikes that could lead to war. Both sides claim that they want to avoid a military confrontation, but there are no guarantees to ward off the spectre of war. Indeed, the talks don’t rule out the possibility of war and may not alter the course of the respective plans that both Nato and Russia are putting in place. The agreement to hold talks in January may well calm things down a little but it won’t defuse the standoff. Another includes putting a stop to western military co-operation in Eastern Europe – especially with the former Soviet republics. For example, one demand is that Nato halts all expansion activities in the direction of Ukraine. The problem with Russia’s proposals is their perceived lack of feasibility. Mr Lavrov has, meanwhile, stressed that any negotiating process must not be perpetual, especially as the threats – as Russia view them – are emerging continuously, with Nato’s infrastructure drawing ever closer to Russia’s borders. Karen Donfried, the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, has called some of Moscow’s demands “unacceptable” but has hinted that dialogue over Ukraine’s future and security in Europe will kick off next month. Mr Putin has sought to lower the temperature in the intervening days by leaving room for negotiations with Nato next month – as has Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – with both leaders demanding certain “security guarantees” from the West. The GCC summit, sovereignty and a shift in Gulf priorities The escalation of tensions amid Nato concerns of a Russian invasion will be worrying not just for the region’s stakeholders but perhaps even for countries around the world, given the impact that an outbreak of war could have on global stability. Moscow is also against any deployment of Nato weapons systems in Eastern Europe amid talk in Washington of sending forces to support Nato's allies in the region if Russia were to invade Ukraine.
#RUSSIA IS A RUSE FULL#
Russia remains opposed to Ukraine’s desire to become a full member of Nato, a US-led security alliance that was created in 1949 as a bulwark against the erstwhile Soviet Union, which Ukraine was an integral part of. The Russian president’s statement came at a time when Moscow is deploying thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine – a country that it considers to be within its orbit of influence but whose army has long been training alongside Nato forces. In his address to army and defence ministry officials, Mr Putin said: “If the obviously aggressive line of our western colleagues continues, we will take adequate, retaliatory military-technical measures.” The weeks-long standoff between Moscow and Nato, the western security umbrella, escalated on Tuesday when Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened a “military-technical response” if the latter did not stop pursuing what his government considers to be aggressive policies in and around neighbouring Ukraine.
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