Issue 34

THE BRETON/GEROL NEWSLETTER

GLOBAL DISARMAMENT

Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signing the INF Treaty
December 8th, 1987, Washington DC

To those who are old enough to have witnessed with excitement the signing of the major disarmament treaties of the 20th century it does not come naturally to acknowledge the fact that public opinion in the Euro-Atlantic region no longer perceives the existence of a long-term direct nuclear threat. US and Russian nuclear arsenals are no less powerful than before, but the global confrontation that could trigger their use no longer seems to exist. Even sharp differences over Ukraine, Syria or Venezuela are circumscribed. US conventional weapons are dispensed with parsimony in Ukraine, not much used in Syria, and not used at all yet in Venezuela.

As the decision of the US to leave the INF Treaty came into effect in early August, yet another Cold War era disarmament arrangement got tossed away. With the likelihood that the same will happen in 2021 or even before with the new START agreement, there will be very little left of the legal framework that hitherto curtailed the global arms race.  It may well be that political understandings between the US and Russia will fill the void and ultimately provide a similar level of global security. There are, however, two problems. First, in the absence of legal limitations, the military-industrial complexes in both the US and Russia are not constrained in the same manner. The inertia that drives weapons developers in both countries may not meet the same resistance. Resources, that could be better used elsewhere, will likely continue to flow unhindered towards the development of new weapons system. Second, but no less important, with the demise of the main disarmament treaties the verification systems that support transparency and confidence will be weakened. They will have to be replaced with new ones to avoid a further deterioration of the security climate.

Amidst allegations by both sides that the other side is cheating, it should be observed that it is the US that does not want its conduct to be limited by binding legal agreements. This is consistent with the current administration’s thinking in other matters, such as for instance the International Criminal Court whose jurisdiction the US does not accept.  As noted above, the rejection of legal agreements does not in itself increase the risk of a confrontation. There is nevertheless a certain discomfort at the idea that the US administration wishes to be governed only by its own rules. The fact that there is an unpredictable occupant in the White House can only leave us to hope that there will be “adults in the room” when decisions are made.  

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THE INF TREATY, MORE SPECIFICALLY

The Iskander-K that launches the non-INF compliant Russian cruise missile
©Wikipedia

The US left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on account of what it saw as a serious Russian violation of the Agreement in terms of development and deployment of a new cruise missile. Within a few weeks of leaving the Treaty, the US tested a roughly similar cruise missile, vigorously denying it had started developing it before leaving the Treaty.  Ultimately, who started cheating may not matter that much. Disagreements over the implementation of the Treaty could have been the subject of serious negotiations and, with time, could have been resolved and the Treaty, if necessary updated. This might have happened with previous US administrations. With John Bolton as US National Security Advisor, this was not to be. Bolton’s abhorrence of disarmament treaties is well known.

The Tomahawk cruise missile. A new land-launched version will exceed INF limitations.

The argument that the INF Treaty was obsolete because it did not address the threat posed by China in Asia has been raised on the US side.  The problem here is that China has no interest in engaging in negotiations on this matter.

Understandably NATO and NATO countries repeated the US line about blaming Russia for the demise of the INF. It would have futile for any US ally to try to change the US position. Supporting it publicly after the fact does no harm. European concern would be though that, INF or not, there is little desire for new US weapons system to be based in Europe. As for Russia, Putin simply stated that its future behaviour would be guided by US actions.

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IRAN GAMBIT

John Bolton’s negotiation style (and probably that of Secretary of State Pompeo as well) was also reflected in the decision to impose direct sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and then calling for Iran to come to the negotiating table. In this respect, President Macron’s decision to invite Zarif to the location of the G7 Summit on August 25^th was a clever one. Macron was probably the first leader to say publicly more than a year ago that Trump’s motivation for leaving the nuclear deal with Iran last year is not with its substance, but that it was concluded under President Obama. Macron, from his frequent interaction with Trump, would know that the only way to get Trump moving on the issue is to have him cast as the star actor and bringing the show to him. Trump seems to have responded to the Zarif bait by suggesting that a meeting with Iranian President Rouhani would be possible “in the right circumstances”.

Macron had received Zarif in Paris on August 23^rd for “productive” talks aimed at rescuing the 2015 international deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program. It is not entirely clear when Trump and the US side were told about Zarif’s travel to Biarritz on the 25^th. What matters is that was played with both sides in a manner that did not raise objections.

FM Zarif, President Macron,
Biarritz, August 25th

For Macron, the invitation to Zarif was a no-lose proposition. There may not be immediate positive follow-up to Zarif being for a few hours in the same city as the US President. The tone of the US-Iran conversation has nevertheless been altered. It is, however, at least premature to envisage a North Korea scenario where top leaders engage in a negotiation process.

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VENEZUELA UPDATE

President Maduro claims that he is engaged in secret talks with the US. As is often the case, the Trump/Bolton team sends contradictory signals on the matter. The President confirms that there are talks, but gives no details. Bolton says that the only item for discussion is Maduro’s departure.  In the meantime, Norway’s discrete efforts to support negotiations between the Maduro regime and the opposition forces were not helped by the US decision to impose another set of sweeping sanctions on Venezuela. That decision compelled Maduro refused to suspend the negotiations for now.

In the absence of a Macron/Iran type of intervention, the situation is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.

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NEW CHAPTER OF UKRAINIAN POLITICAL HISTORY

President Zelenskyy speaking before the new Rada
August 29th, Kyiv
©President of Ukraine Website

The New Rada (Parliament) that began its work in Kyiv on August 29th is the first in the history of independent Ukraine dominated by one political party. The Servant of the People party led by President Zelenskyy has obtained an absolute majority of seats in the parliamentary elections and will form the government without any traditional coalitions and traditional party alliances. This will provide Volodymyr Zelenskyy with carte blanche to introduce the most radical reforms of the state apparatus, law and order system and a genuine privatization of the economy. Zelenskyy has already begun his reforms with a radical and important cleanup of the country's Security Service (SBU).

When Ukraine's domestic security service revealed last year that it had faked the death of a dissident Russian journalist to expose a team of hit men allegedly hired by Moscow to destabilize the country by assassinating high-profile figures in Ukraine, it was expecting compliments, something that would make them look like the legendary Israeli security service, the Mossad. Instead, the stunt sparked widespread criticism, gave Russia another reason to ridicule their foe and once again tarnished the already lousy reputation of the SBU.

A year later, fresh off huge election victories that brought him and his fledgling Servant of the People party to power, President Zelenskyy now has a possibility to do what none of his predecessors was able to do: reform, repair, refresh the agency.

How successful the 41-year-old Zelenskyy and his young team of reformers are in cleaning up the agency, arguably the country's most powerful institution, will be a litmus test of his administration's resolve to bring Ukraine more into line with Western democracies.

On the other hand, failure to reform the security service will also undermine larger efforts to fight corruption and economic crime, as the agency's activities have much to do with Ukraine's efforts to bolster the rule of law, and its checkered reputation deters foreign investors from bringing business to a country where the security service was often part of economic crime.

Of course, the SBU is small child of its notorious father, the KGB of the Soviet Union (just as any other security agency of the former republics, all 15 of them). Oleksy Melnyk, director of the Ukraine-based Razumkov centre said this about the SBU: "it's kind of an under-reformed Soviet special service and the SBU is very much how the KGB was or even the NKVD," he added, referring to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's secret police. It is a large organization, in the best traditions of the Soviet Union and a sign of not very democratic state. It has about 30,000 employees. The SBU is more than seven times the size of the United Kingdom's MI5, and more than four times the size of the Mossad.

The West also had applied pressure in that direction and insisted that the reform was almost obligatory if the country wanted eventually to be member of NATO and other Western-aligned organizations.

The SBU's infiltration by Russian agents has also been a serious obstacle to reform and will likely continue to be as Zelenskiy's team moves ahead, although perhaps to a lesser degree than in the past.

The Russian spy agencies not only had total access to everything sacred within Ukraine and the SBU during the Euro-Maidan in 2014,but former SBU chief Oleksandr Yakymenko who was appointed by Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych was without doubt working directly for the Russian FSB. Now, as the old slang of the spying business went, it was a "good get".It is hard to get a better source than that when one spies on another country.

Also, it has been reported that when unidentified Russian special forces (so-called "green men") stormed the Crimea peninsula in 2014, thousands of Ukrainian security agents switched sides and declared their loyalty to Moscow.

This is a huge test for the young president and his people. If Zelenskyy succeeds in this this reform or even a makeover of the agency he will prove himself a true political operator. The odds, however, are against him.

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FIRST CASPIAN ECONOMIC FORUM

After almost a quarter of the century, an end is in sight for a dispute over a sea that was under question as to whether it was even a sea. The Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea was signed last year. Russia is committed to ratifying the Convention in the near future.

A lot is at stake, namely billions of dollars of oil and gas contracts. The Caspian, the largest enclosed body of water in the world, contains a massive 48 billion barrels of oil and 9 trillion cubic metres of natural gas in proven offshore reserves. And that is what we know about: there may be much more, but territorial disputes have frustrated attempts at proper exploration.

The Caspian problem arose after the breakup of the USSR. Before then, the water was split between two nation states: Iran and the Soviet Union. Afterwards, there were four new nations to deal with: Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. One of the major stumbling blocks has been the status of the sea itself. Many were arguing whether it was a sea or a lake?

This is no simple debate over words, but of development rights and cash. If it had been designated a lake, the rights would have been divided up equally, with each nation receiving 20 per cent. If, however, it is deemed to be a sea, it is split between the competing nations in proportion to each one’s share of its coastline. Iran, the major loser in the sea approach, had been resisting the definition.

Russian PM Medvedev with high-level officials from Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan
Avaza, Turkmenistan, August 11th
© PM of Russia Website

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev participated in the First Caspian Economic Forum on August 11-12 in Turkmenistan. The Soviet style of official photograph that accompanies the event should not lead to an under-estimation of the economic significance for Russia of the Caspian Sea region economic cooperation. The so-called "pivot to the East" is not exclusively about China.

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PERSON OF THE MONTH: EMMANUEL MACRON (ENCORE)

Emmanuel Macron deserves the title for a second time on account of his deft management of this year’s G7 Summit and related issues. Macron now seems to have found a way to deal with President Trump, not necessarily to have him change his mind on certain issues such as, for instance, climate change. Rather, Macron, through his daring invite to Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif was able to orient the conversation in the direction that he chose. He also managed to get some form of arrangement in principle with the US over the taxation of internet giants. Throughout the meeting and till the end he kept Trump engaged in a manner that deserved him a warm hug rather than a twitter insult, as happened to Justin Trudeau last year.

Presidents Trump and Macron
Biarritz, August 26th

Presidents Putin and Macron
Fort de Brégançon, August 19th

Rather than proposing to re-create the G8 by re-inviting Russia, a non-starter with some G7 leaders, Macron invited President Putin to his summer residence for an extended working session days before the G7 meeting. While this may not look as good as having Russia at the table it certainly accomplished a great deal in terms of political consultations with Russia. Since then, Macron has proposed at the annual meeting of French Ambassadors a “re-think of our link with Russia” arguing that Russia is “incontournable” (unavoidable). Coming from a leader who is also directly involved in the negotiations over Eastern Ukraine, this bears watching.

Macron also calmly withstood the insult directed at his wife by Brazilian President Bolsonaro as well as being called a “cretin” by a senior Brazilian Minister.

All in all, with the UK leader obsessed with leaving the EU and the German chancellor retiring soon, Macron now emerges as the foremost European leader.

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BELARUS

Belarus is seeking to buy U.S. oil for its refineries for the first time as it strives to diversify supplies away from its more powerful, energy-rich neighbor Russia and to build warmer relations with the West. The interest in U.S. crude comes as Moscow voices greater interest in pursuing a union with Belarus, a project that has remained dormant for the past 20 years but that the Kremlin wants to revive.

The state-owned Belarusian Oil Company, which is affiliated with the refiner Belneftekhim Concern, has hired David Gencarelli to lobby the U.S. government for sanctions relief so the country can buy crude. Gencarelli will assist the company in getting a special license from the U.S. Treasury Department for the "purchase of crude oil with delivery to the refineries in the Republic of Belarus," according to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing. 

Belarus buying oil from a Kremlin foe is a "political message aimed at Russia", said Michael Carpenter, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense, who now is a senior director at the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "This is a hard slap in Putin’s face."

Russia, the world's second-largest oil producer, has kept Belarus within its sphere of influence by offering the nation cheap energy and loans that have propped up its outdated economy for decades.

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RUSSIA

Russia's first floating nuclear power plant, which Greenpeace has dubbed a “floating Chernobyl,” has set sail on a nearly 5,000-kilometer voyage to its destination in the nation’s northeast. The floating plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, departed the Arctic port of Murmansk on August 23rd, according to state nuclear company Rosatom.

Akademik Lomonosov
©Rosatom

If all goes according to plan, the 140-meter towed platform that carries two 35-megawatt nuclear reactors is to be put into service later this year in the Arctic off the coast of Chukotka in the Far East, providing power for a port town and for oil rigs.

Analysts say the project is part of Russia’s greater aims to secure the rich deposits of oil and gas in the North Pole region. Due to climate change, new shipping routes are opening in Russia’s north. As a result, Moscow is strengthening its military position in the area.

The reactor's trip is expected to take between four and six weeks, depending on the weather conditions and the amount of ice on the way. When it arrives in Pevek, a town of 5,000 in the Siberian region of Chukotka, it will replace a local nuclear plant and a closed coal plant.

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ARMENIA

A recent visit by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the comments he made there, have triggered a fresh war of words between Yerevan and Baku. In a recent statement, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry accused Pashinian of "provoking" tensions in the region with his "illegal" visit earlier this week. In an hour-long speech before thousands of people gathered on August 5th in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinian said the region was "Armenian, and that's that." He also led the crowd in chanting for the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

PM Pashinian
Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, August 5th

In a first statement published the following day, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry called Pashinian's speech "aggressive" and a "major blow" to internationally mediated negotiations to settle the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Yerevan responded to that statement by saying the Azerbaijani authorities misunderstood the "context and content" of Pashinian's speech, which it said aimed at promoting a "pan-Armenian agenda of unity, solidarity, development, and prosperity" of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Armenian diaspora."

The Armenian Foreign Ministry also accused Baku of being "unable to maintain norms of diplomatic ethics," launching "personalized attacks," and "creating threats to the security and existence of the people" of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mainly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Since 1994, it has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces that Azerbaijan says include troops supplied by Armenia. The region's claim to independence has not been recognized by any country.

Negotiations involving the OSCE's so-called Minsk Group helped forge a cease-fire in the region, which is not always honored, but have failed to produce a lasting settlement of the conflict. The Minsk Group is co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States.

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NORWAY/RUSSIA

Researchers at a Norwegian institute believe that there may have been two explosions, not one, at the Russian naval test site on the White Sea in early August, an incident that killed at least five people and raised new questions about Russia's weapons research.

The conclusions were published on August 14th by the Norsar Research Institute, based on seismographic and acoustic readings taken the day of the deadly incident, but have gone largely unnoticed. Anne Lycke, the institute's chief executive, told the media that the institute's monitoring stations first detected seismographic readings on August 8th at around 9 a.m. local time in Arkhangelsk, a major city on the White Sea. The readings, she said, pointed to an explosion that occurred somewhere close to the Earth's surface, either on ground or on water.

Around two hours later, at 11 a.m., a different sensor designed to pick up infrasound, or low-frequency sound, registered another, different acoustic event, Lycke said. Researchers concluded that that was likely an explosion that occurred in the air, some height above the ground, she said.

The institute's findings, which were first reported by the newspaper Afternposten on August 22nd, add to a growing body of publicly available evidence about the August 8th incident that took place at the Nyonoksa naval test site, a range on the White Sea that has been used for decades by Soviet and Russian military planners.

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UKRAINE/RUSSIA

Three Russian citizens held in Ukraine are getting ready for a prisoner swap, their lawyer said amid reports that Russia plans to hand over to Kyiv dozens of jailed Ukrainians. Valentin Rybin told the TASS news agency on August 22nd that his clients Aleksandr Baranov, Maksim Odintsov, and Yevgeny Mefyodov are currently going through judicial procedures in preparation for the exchange "in the nearest future."

Baranov and Odintsov, once soldiers of the Ukrainian Army in Crimea, changed sides after Moscow seized the peninsula in 2014. They were found guilty of high treason and desertion in February and sentenced to 13 and 14 years in prison, respectively. Mefyodov is charged with separatism over a deadly standoff between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian activists in Ukraine's Black Sea port city of Odesa in 2014. Their lawyer's statement comes a day after some Russian media reports cited sources saying that many Ukrainians held in Russia will be exchanged for Russians held in Ukraine.

The Kommersant newspaper reported on August 21st that the exchange could take place by the end of August and among the Ukrainians set to be transferred to Kyiv there will be 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russian forces in November near the Kerch Strait close to Russia-annexed Crimea.

However, on August 21st, a court in Moscow upheld the pretrial detention for 13 of the 24 Ukrainian sailors until October 26th.

Also on August 21st, media reports in Russia said five Ukrainian nationals jailed in Russia may be handed over to Kyiv to serve the rest of their sentences at home. The Moscow-based Memorial human rights center said the previous day that five Ukrainians held in Russia had been transferred from labor camps in several different regions to the Lefortovo detention center in Moscow.

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 THE AUTHORS

Ilya Gerol, former foreign editor of the Citizen in Ottawa, syndicated columnist in Canadian, US and European media specializing in international affairs. His area of expertise includes Russia, Eurasian Economic Union, Eastern and Central Europe.  Ilya Gerol has written several books, one of them, The Manipulators, had become a textbook on relations of media and society.

During his career in the Canadian Foreign Service, Gilles Breton had three assignments at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow. His first posting there began during the Soviet period, in 1983. His last was from 2008 to 2012 as Minister-Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission. He also served as Deputy Director responsible for Canada’s relations with Russia from 2000 to 2008. As an international civil servant, he was Deputy Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw from 1994 to 1997.

Gilles Breton also currently serves as Chairman of the National Board of the Canada-Eurasia-Russia Business Association. The views expressed in this newsletter exclusively reflect the opinion of the authors.