Though unwilling, a deficit of help from some Western countries nudges Ukraine to negotiate with Russia – in fact, to make concessions to Russia. The first Peace Summit in Switzerland is aimed at discussing conditions to end the Russian war. Foreign leaders are speaking ever louder about involving Russia in the negotiations. So far, Ukraine has managed to convince its partners that involving Moscow is irrelevant. However, this does not mean that the faction of countries that can be called “peace at any price” will back down from its intentions. It seems as if the states promoting early negotiations ignore the fact that by nudging Ukraine to negotiate given the current conditions they are playing along with Russia. Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia will be more like discussing surrender issues, even if certain countries have the most sincere intentions to return peace to Europe. And if China’s motives in calling for peace are clear (to inflict a strategic defeat on the West), then the same statements by Ukrainian friends are evidence of short-sightedness, at least.

As Ukraine continues to fight to liberate its occupied territories and eject Russian invaders, its Western backers debate the likely endgame for the war and its aftermath. The international response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while impressive in many ways, remains inadequate to the task and dangerously wobbly. Russia’s wider threat to the rules-based international order is also insufficiently acknowledged. Many proposals have been put forward for how the conflict could, or should, be brought to a close. Some, though well-intentioned, involve concessions that would effectively appease Russia, betray Ukraine and endanger Europe. Persistent calls for a ceasefire or ‘negotiated settlement’ to end the fighting without tackling its underlying cause – Russia’s ambition to eliminate Ukraine as we know it – will do no more than reward the aggressor while punishing the victim. This multi-author report takes nine commonly espoused ideas for quick fixes or objections to bolster...

The impact of the political imbroglio involving Russia and Ukraine is complex and multi-layered. The proximity of Kiev and Moscow raises questions about the nature of relations between Ukraine and the West, which plays a vital role in managing the conflicts around the world to shape the future of the nations in political and economic dimensions. This study puts forth a proposition to observe in the background of the Russia-Ukraine war. The research has applied collaborative and bargaining approaches towards conflict management given by Thomas and Kilmann. The study recommends that Ukrainian identity, legitimacy of authority and sovereignty should be restored. It is also suggested that the crisis can be solved with sustained and well-intentioned negotiations for conflict resolution, immediate referendums under international surveillance in disputed territories, the complete demilitarisation and non-alignment of Ukraine. The research intends to observe to what extent Western powers pl...

On October 1, 2019, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed to meet Russia’s conditions for holding peace talks already this autumn. Moscow’s readiness to play, however, should not be mistaken for willingness to solve the conflict. So far, the Kremlin has not made any concessions in Eastern Ukraine that would be irreversible; consequently, it seems to only be testing Zelenskiy’s limits. Both Zelenskiy and the EU need to be cautious not to reward easy-to-reverse steps with major, strategic benefits.

When he took office in early 2009, President Barack Obama made improvement of the United States’ relations with Russia – the so-called “reset” policy – one of his signature foreign policy initiatives. That hope lies now in tatters, shattered by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilisation of south-eastern Ukraine. The goal of turning US-Russia cooperation – and, by extension, West-Russia cooperation – into a building block of international governance looks now as distant as it was during the Cold War. The best one can hope instead is that relations between Moscow and Western capitals do not further deteriorate to the point of a complete breakdown. The rationale for the “reset” policy was the pragmatic recognition that the recurring tensions with Russia – prompted by issues ranging from Kosovo’s independence to the US plan to install a ballistic missile defence system in Eastern Europe and Georgia’s and Ukraine’s prospective membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) – were thwarting US and Western interests in Afghanistan and the management of Iran’s nuclear issue as well as creating new fault lines on the European continent. Tellingly, after reaching a low point in relations in the wake of Russia’s short and victorious war against Georgia in August 2008, both Russia and Western powers took steps to avoid a scenario of full confrontation. Several member states of the European Union (EU), particularly Western European countries with little memory of recent Soviet domination, viewed the new US course as being more in keeping with their interest in establishing a constructive relationship with Russia, a key player on the European stage and the Union’s main energy provider. While some EU member states, particularly in Eastern Europe, felt the United States was too prone to seek cooperation with an unreliable Russian government, the whole European Union eventually signed WEST-RUSSIA RELATIONS IN LIGHT OF THE UKRAINE CRISIS 12 off on Obama’s policy. The election of Dmitry Medvedev as Russia’s president, who depicted himself as more liberal-minded than his patron and predecessor, Vladimir Putin, had in fact helped create an atmosphere more forthcoming for dialogue and cooperation. The “reset” policy did produce some important results, most notably the US-Russian agreement on the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons known as the New START (the only relevant nuclear disarmament agreement struck in twenty years); Russia’s greater cooperation on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, particularly thanks to its agreeing to tough sanctions against Tehran in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in June 2010; and Russia’s agreement to let key military supplies for the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan transit its airspace, an important development given the growing difficulty NATO was experiencing in keeping open its supply lines through Pakistan. While significant, these achievements did not pave the way for what many had hoped the “reset” policy would eventually produce: a renewed West-Russia relationship based on mutual respect and cooperation on issues of common concern. In fact, relations between the West and Russia continued to be fraught with problems of mistrust, rhetorical competition, and fundamentally different views of how security issues should be managed internationally. In hindsight, the “reset” policy seems to have been just a lull in a process started in the early 2000s which has seen West-Russia relations steadily deteriorate. While none of the “reset” policy achievements has thus far been reversed, a succession of events, including the re-election of Putin as Russia’s president in 2012 and culminating in Russia’s forced takeover of Crimea and destabilisation of Ukraine, have plunged the West-Russia relationship to its lowest point in twenty-five years. For many in the West, the crisis over Ukraine has laid bare the most unsettling features of President Putin’s government: lack of any appreciation for political pluralism; readiness to dispense with opposition forces by de-legitimisation through state-controlled propaganda and possibly forceful repression; and resolve to defend what Putin perceives as Russia’s vital interests with any means, including the use of force, land grabs, and destabilising practices such as fomenting and directing pro-Russian nationalist protests in other countries. INTRODUCTION 13 Ukraine is a special case because influence over Kiev is of paramount importance to Russia’s security strategy and national pride. However, it should not be seen in isolation. It is part of a broader design by President Putin to re-establish as much influence as possible over the former Soviet space. Central to this objective is Putin’s plan for a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) including most of the former republics of the Soviet Union, be them in East Europe, the Caucasus or Central Asia. The problem with the Eurasian Economic Union is that the Russian president sees it as incompatible with any significant form of integration of its members into Euro-Atlantic frameworks, notably NATO but also the European Union. The crisis in Ukraine has also made it clear that the West is now confronted with the problem of handling the revanchist instincts of a former superpower. The West faces an intractable regime centred on the personal power of President Putin, who has increasingly tied his legitimacy to a pledge to embody and defend an exceptionalist Russian identity, mostly defined in opposition to Western values and norms. In other words, the conflict between the West and Russia is framed by Putin himself not only as a conflict of interests, but of identity too. This narrative has been used by Putin to rebut any sort of criticism coming from the West, be it directed at Russia’s takeover of Crimea or at Putin’s increasingly strict control over Russia’s media and marginalisation and repression of political dissent. Signs of growing competition between the West and Russia were visible long before unrest in Ukraine escalated into a full-blown crisis. The Arab uprisings are a case in point. From the start, Russia and the West have held different views of the cycle of revolutions and counterrevolutions which has engulfed the most part of the Arab world. While the United States and the European Union initially insisted on the antiauthoritarian and pro-democracy nature of popular protests, Russia has consistently seen the so-called Arab Spring as a bearer of instability and, more worryingly, as an opportunity for Islamic fundamentalism to find new ways to gain influence. Moscow opted for a cautious approach in the beginning, even letting the Security Council authorise the use of force to protect endangered civilians in the prolonged conflict between Libya’s longstanding ruler, Muammar Qaddafi, and a West-backed rebel WEST-RUSSIA RELATIONS IN LIGHT OF THE UKRAINE CRISIS 14 coalition. Russia came to regret its choice in a matter of months if not weeks, as it became clear that NATO’s intervention in defence of civilians rapidly “crept” into what the Russians perceived as an open policy of regime change by force. Bruised by the Libya case, Russia has ever since been adamant in refusing any form of UNSC support for rebels fighting against established rulers in the Arab world, irrespective of how brutal such rulers could be. This has been most evident in Syria, where Russia has steadfastly protected its ally Bashar al-Assad from any form of UN action. West-Russia relations have so dramatically deteriorated that talk of a new Cold War has become routine. NATO’s role in Europe is again in the spotlight, with experts and policymakers alike pondering whether the Alliance needs to go back to its historical roots, re-calibrating itself as an instrument of defence from and containment of Russia. However, it is important to notice that cooperation has not collapsed altogether. Russia has continued to be a committed member of the P5+1, the group of nations (including also the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and China plus the European Union) dealing with Iran’s nuclear dispute. It has also continued to assist NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan. And it has agreed with the United States upon a plan for the removal of all chemical weapons from Syria, forcing the Assad regime to deliver. Thus, while competition has increased in strategic areas – most notably in the former Soviet space and the Middle East – the need for cooperation has not vanished. Clearly, this is far from an ideal scenario. Tensions over Ukraine are so strong that the risk of a breakdown in relations is certainly present. Yet neither party would benefit from it. It was with the goal of exploring ways by which Russia and the West can contain tensions, manage competition, and keep cooperating on issues of mutual concern, that the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) of Rome and the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at the Brookings Institution of Washington co-organised an international conference on West-Russia relations. The conference was the seventh edition of the Transatlantic Security Symposium, the IAI-run annual forum in which experts from America, Europe and other countries convene to discuss the main topics in the transatlantic security agenda. The event, sponsored by Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and InternaINTRODUCTION 15 tional Development, NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division, the Compagnia di San Paolo, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Rome Office) and Unicredit Bank, saw the participation of over forty senior experts from think tanks and other institutions from a number of EU member states (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria), the United States, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and Russia took part. This volume collects a revised version of the papers that were presented at the event as well as a summary of the main points that were discussed. (R.A.)

Ukraine has become a conflict zone between the West and Russia resulting in disastrous consequences for Ukrainian society. The roots of the conflict stretch far beyond Ukrainian national intentions. It is a conflict between the Western World and Russia, where European, Russian and Ukrainian interests are jeopardized mostly for the benefit of US foreign policy goals. The US plays an essential role in the Western attempt to remove Ukraine entirely from the Russian sphere of influence. It is unlikely that Russia will abandon her foreign and security policy goal of herding Ukraine back into the Russian orbit or at least forcing Ukraine to serve as a “buffer zone” between Russia and the West. Ukraine is unable to resolve the crisis on her own and is unfit to become a member of the EU or NATO. The most probable outcome of the crisis will most likely permanently damage Western-Russian relations, which will fulfil the Russian expectations regarding the future status of Ukraine. KEYWORDS: foreign and security policy, crisis, hybrid and information warfare, Russia, Ukraine, West, US

In the spring of 2021, particularly in March and April, international news agencies began reporting Russian military build-up along Ukraine's borders and in the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Although the war rhetoric in news agencies relatively softened over the summer, it has begun to escalate once again starting in October 2021 which led to Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine on 24 February 2022. This article seeks to answer the following questions: Why did Russia decide to invade Ukraine despite its upper hand in the peace negotiations with Kyiv? What is Russia’s endgame in Ukraine? Should we focus on relations between Russia and the United States, bypassing Ukraine, to find out a plausible explanation for the war? To what extent do Putin’s personal desires play a role in escalating tensions?

The conflict in Eastern Ukraine has been exceptionally resistant to resolution, with numerous mediation attempts resulting in broken agreements which have at best de-escalated the most intense fighting while failing to address underlying issues. Major obstacles to resolution are those core elements of grey zone conflict which we identified in our CGAI commentary of last month. These include situational ambiguity regarding the techniques utilized by belligerents against each other, as well as the uncertainty associated with the perception of the point of victory. A second obstacle is recalcitrance towards implementing the main provisions under the Minsk Agreements. For example, a recent law passed by Ukraine's parliament serves as an impediment to multilateral negotiations because it makes no provision for granting autonomy or holding elections in the Donbas region, both of which are part of the Minsk Agreements. The law unilaterally redraws Ukraine's position on Russia's involvement, the status of the two separatist territories and discounts previous mediation efforts and agreements facilitated by the OSCE, Germany and France.