The Russia–Israel War: The Importance of Russia’s Strategy for the Security, Freedom and Progress of the World in the Light of a Cold War

A former CNN producer and correspondent, Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Her views are not those of the commentary. CNN has more opinion on it.

Russia’s ability to defend its strategic infrastructure has been put into question due to a series of explosions along a key bridge.

CNN reported that Iran is about to bring more powerful weapons to Russia for the fight againstUkraine, and that they are closely monitored by a western country.

The ties between Moscow and Tehran have drawn the attention of Iran’s rivals in the Middle East, and NATO members who are interested in restoring the nuclear deal with Iran, which was intended to delay the ability to build an atomic bomb.

This is a conflict like few before it with grave and far-reaching consequences. The ramifications we have already seen underscore just how important it is – and not only for Ukraine – that Russia’s aggression not succeed.

If the war is won by Russia it will lead to a new era of instability with less freedom, less peace and less prosperity for the world.

The United States led massive support for Ukraine. New applications for NATO membership were brought from countries that had been neutral during the war in Ukraine. It helped remind people in eastern European states that they need to orient their future to the west.

There are repercussions to what happens far from the battlefields. When oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, decided last month to slash production, the US accused the Saudis of helping Russia fund the war by boosting its oil revenues. (An accusation the Saudis deny).

Separately, weapons supplies to Ukraine have become a point of tension with Israel, which has developed highly effective defense systems against incoming missiles. Ukraine has asked Israel to provide those systems, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling, but Israel refuses, citing its own strategic concerns.

After the war began, Russia halted Ukrainian grain shipments and caused food prices to go up. The head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, warned in May that the world was “marching toward starvation.”

Higher prices not only affect family budgets and individual lives. They pack a political punch when they have the power of momentum. Inflation, worsened by the war, has put incumbent political leaders on the defensive in countless countries.

The Russian War on Crime and Human Rights: Ten-Year Russia’s Mission to Demilitarize the Soviet Union During the First World War

And it’s not all on the fringes. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader who could become speaker of the House after next week’s US elections, suggested the GOP might choose to reduce aid to Ukraine. The Progressives withdrew a letter that called for negotiations. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official during the Obama administration, said they’re all bringing “a big smile to Putin’s face.”

MOSCOW — It’s been 10 months since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he was deploying tens of thousands of Russian troops on a mission to “denazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine – its smaller independent neighbor and former satellite of both the Russian and Soviet empires.

At the time, Putin claimed his forces were embarking on a limited campaign that would end in a matter of weeks.

The largest land war in Europe since World War II caused millions of Ukrainians to flee from their homes, decimated the Ukrainian economy, and killed thousands of civilians.

Yet the war has also fundamentally upended Russian life — rupturing a post-Soviet period in which the country pursued, if not always democratic reforms, then at least financial integration and dialogue with the West.

Draconian laws passed since February have outlawed criticism of the military or leadership. Nearly 20,000 people have been arrested for demonstrating against the war, 45% of them women, according to a leading independent monitoring group.

Lengthy prison sentences have been meted out to high profile opposition voices on charges of “discrediting” the Russian army by questioning its conduct or strategy.

The repressions extend elsewhere: organizations and individuals are added weekly to a growing list of “foreign agents” and “non-desirable” organizations intended to damage their reputation among the Russian public.

Even Russia’s most revered human rights group, 2022’s Nobel Prize co-recipient Memorial, was forced to stop its activities over alleged violations of the foreign agents law.

The state has also vastly expanded Russia’s already restrictive anti-LGBT laws, arguing the war in Ukraine reflects a wider attack on “traditional values.”

For now, repressions remain targeted. There are some new laws that are not enforced. But few doubt the measures are intended to crush wider dissent — should the moment arise.

Leading independent media outlets and a handful of vibrant, online investigative startups were forced to shut down or relocate abroad when confronted with new “fake news” laws that criminalized contradicting the official government line.

Internet users have restrictions of their own as well. American social media companies were banned in March. Since the beginning of the conflict, over 100,000 websites have been blocked by the Russian internet regulators.

Technical workarounds such as VPNs and Telegram still offer access to Russians seeking independent sources of information. But state media propaganda now blankets the airwaves favored by older Russians, with angry TV talk shows spreading conspiracies.

The Russian Exodus after the September 11, 2001 War: Implications for Russian Economy and Foreign Trade Relations with the West, and Russia’s Connection to the Middle East

Thousands of perceived government opponents — many of them political activists, civil society workers and journalists — left in the war’s early days amid concerns of persecution.

Yet Putin’s order to mobilize 300,000 additional troops in September prompted the largest outflow: Hundreds of thousands of Russian men fled to border states including Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Georgia in an attempt to avoid the draft.

Putin said it was a good way of cleaning out Russian society from traitors and spies. Russians who left the country of their citizenship should have their passports taken away. Yet there are questions whether Russia can thrive without many of its best and brightest.

Some countries that have absorbed the Russian exodus are confident that their economies will grow, even as the issue of Russians remains a sensitive one for former Soviet republics.

The ruble regained value, thanks to Russian price controls. Russian ownership led to the re-launching of several brands, including McDonald’s. By year’s end, the government reported the economy had declined by 2.5%, far less than most economists predicted.

The west is trying to limit the amount of Russian oil that countries pay for and limit seaborne oil imports. There are some signals that the efforts are taking away profits.

President Putin thinks that Europe will be the first country to blink in regards to sanctions, because they will be angry over high energy costs at home. He announced a five-month ban on oil exports to countries that abide by the price cap, a move likely to make the pain more acute in Europe.

The economic damage has already put an end to Putin’s two-decades strong reputation for providing “stability” — once a key basis for his support among Russians who remember the chaotic years that followed the collapse of the USSR.

There’s no change in Russia’s military campaign tone from the government. Daily briefings from Russia’s Defense Ministry show how well the country is doing. Putin, too, repeatedly assures that everything is “going according to plan.”

Yet the sheer length of the war — with no immediate Russian victory in sight — suggests Russia vastly underestimated Ukrainians’ willingness to resist.

Russian troops were unable to conquer the cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv. Kherson was abandoned by Russia during a Ukrainian counteroffensive in November. Russian forces have shelled the city repeatedly since retreating.

Russia’s annexation of four territories of Ukraine after a referendum that wasn’t recognized by the authorities underscored Moscow’s problems, because it hasn’t been able to establish full control of its own lands.

The number of Russian men who died in the war is not publicly known, even though it is officially at under 6,000 men. Western estimates are much higher than the ones we have here.

Indeed, Russia’s invasion has — thus far — backfired in its primary aims: NATO looks set to expand towards Russia’s borders, with the addition of long-neutral states Finland and Sweden.

Longtime allies in Central Asia have criticized Russia’s actions out of concern for their own sovereignty, an affront that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. India and China have eagerly purchased discounted Russian oil, but have stopped short of full-throated support for Russia’s military campaign.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/31/1145981036/war-against-ukraine-has-left-russia-isolated-and-struggling-with-more-tumult-ahe

Russia’s response to the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis has been a failure of the 2023 state of the nation

A state of the nation address, originally scheduled for April, was repeatedly delayed and won’t happen until next year. Putin’s annual “direct line” — a media event in which Putin fields questions from ordinary Russians — was canceled outright.

An annual December “big press conference” that allows the Russian leader to handle questions from the pro-Kremlin media was also tabled until 2023.

The Kremlin has given no reason for the delays. After 10 months of war and no sign of victory, the Russian leader has run out of good news to share.

The president of the Applied Policy Research Institute is a journalist by the name of Lara Setrakian. Follow her on Twitter at @Lara. The opinions expressed are of her own. Read more opinion on CNN.

Russia and Turkey have aimed to dominate the South Caucasus at the expense of their smaller neighbors. The model has proven to be unsuitable to protect human life. At a time when the West is competing with Russia over Ukraine – cast as a fight for democracy against autocracy – this is a vital arena to make the same point and prove that the West has real influence in the post-Soviet region.

Peacebuilding to Russia was not a good idea. The policy is allowing another catastrophe in the area and compromising Western interests in the region.

The US, EU, the UN Secretary-General and a number of other countries have made calls for the restoration of the road to Nagorno-Karabakh, but those calls have gone unheeded. Armenians see it as a strategy by Azerbaijan of starving or squeezing them out of the disputed enclave.

Incoming supplies have been severely limited since December 12, 2022, when the blockade began. Grocery stores are rationing food, with little by way of fresh fruits or vegetables, and there is a dire shortage of medical supplies, residents said in late December. The blockade is in response to mining activities that are held in the other party’s territory. But rather than taking the issue to international mediation it has decided to block incoming transit until its conditions are met – a violation of international and humanitarian law.

They are people with a deep Christian faith and profound cultural identity from Nagorno-Karabakh. Some people tried to give their families a semblance of a Christmas holiday during hard times. Children in Nagorno-Karabagh are showing signs of stress and nervous breakdown as a result of the blockade, according to a doctor who is stuck there. UNICEF has warned that children are lacking basic food items and essential services, some of them separated from their parents or legal guardians on the other side of the blocked road.

“People’s big concern is keeping their children warm and fed,” Sukhudyan said in a phone interview. She described how people are surviving by helping each other out. If there are two mothers and only one has baby formula, the other will share it with the other mother and breastfeed more.

Does the Dark Matter in the Nagorno-Karabakh Crisis Come from a Strategic Viewpoint? The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin

Russia has been unable to make any significant move to defuse the problem. It has been hesitant to let the western countries help solve the standoff. It prefers to be the main power on the ground, using the resulting leverage to advance its regional interests.

Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, who watches the region closely, told me he worries about the risk of ethnic cleansing if the situation is left unchecked and unattended to by world powers.

Rubin stated that the first question was about how to get diplomatic or military observers into Nagorno-Karabakh. “Genocide happens in the dark. If we are able to shine a light in the region then oftentimes we can proactively prevent the worst outcomes.”

The US is not powerless in this situation. It can push for a humanitarian airlift to deliver supplies to the communities of Nagorno-Karabakh or seek further action from the UN Security Council, which met on December 20 to discuss the situation. America also has direct leverage over Turkey and Azerbaijan that can stabilize the situation, using a trove of diplomatic and economic tools.

Rubin said that the pressure was created on Turkish President Erdogan when the Trump administration imposed a few steel sanctions on Turkey. “Why should we oppose doing that over Nagorno-Karabakh?”