Russia feels chill wind blowing from Europe

Moscow's ties with number of countries put to test

Czech diplomats and their families arrive at Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague, Czech Republic, on April 19. Russia ordered 20 Czech diplomats to leave the country within 24 hours in response to Prague's expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats. (PETR DAVID JOSEK / AP)

Compared with the challenges it faces from the United States, Russia is experiencing more serious tensions with some European nations.

In the middle of last month, the Russian Federal Security Service and the Belarus State Security Committee acted to prevent a coup that would reportedly have resulted in the assassination of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and his children being kidnapped.

At about the same time, the Czech intelligence agencies, which Russia has accused of working in tandem with their Western counterparts, exposed what they said was an "act of state terrorism".

It’s hard to imagine in the current circumstances how the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — even if completed — could become fully operational

Maxim Samorukov, Fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center

They accused Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who were charged with poisoning the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a deadly nerve agent in the English town of Salisbury in 2018, of orchestrating an explosion in October 2014, at an arms depot in the Czech Republic, in which two men died.

The Czech authorities appear to have plenty of evidence to support their allegations. They said that access passes to the depot, supposedly for an inspection visit, were ordered for the two men, who stayed at a hotel near the site.

According to Czech media outlet Lidovky.cz, there is even closed circuit television footage of Petrov and Boshirov visiting the depot the day before the explosion.

As for motive, according to Czech media, at the time of the explosion, the depot was supplying arms to Ukraine, which was waging a war against separatists in its eastern Donbas region. The arms dealer responsible was reportedly Emilian Gebrev, a Bulgarian businessman who survived being poisoned in the Bulgarian capital Sofia six months after the explosion.

There are still unanswered questions relating to the blast, such as why there was another explosion at the depot just two months later, and why the Czech authorities have only just made their claims public. Former Czech foreign minister Tomas Petricek, who was dismissed earlier this month, claims he has known about them for some time.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic announced the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats it identified as undercover intelligence officers.

Interior Minister Jan Hamacek, who has also served as the country's foreign minister, said the Russian embassy staff members were clearly identified as spies from the Russian intelligence services known as GRU, the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service. They were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours.

It is by far the biggest row between the Czech Republic and Russia since 1989, and means the Czech embassy in Moscow will effectively be closed, along with the country's consulates in Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg. Contact between the two nations will be put on hold.

There can now be no talk of Russia supplying the Czech Republic with its Sputnik V vaccine for COVID-19, something Hamacek, also Czech first deputy prime minister, was due to discuss in Moscow at the end of this month.

Also off the table is the prospect of Rosatom, Russia's nuclear energy corporation, winning a tender to build new reactors at the Dukovany nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic, a contract worth several billion dollars. Prague has long been criticized in the West for being prepared to consider energy proposals from a hostile Moscow. It will now be almost impossible to deflect that criticism.

It is also clear that the fallout from these accusations will reach far beyond the Czech Republic, which is already in talks with its European Union and NATO allies. Charges of state terrorism carried out on the territory of a NATO country resulting in the death of its nationals are certainly no less serious than the alleged attempted murder of the double agent Skripal.

Maxim Samorukov, a Fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the row between the Czech Republic and Russia is just one of the diplomatic conflicts between Europe and Moscow.

On April 28, Russia expelled seven European diplomats after their countries ordered Russian diplomats to leave in solidarity with the Czech Republic.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that a total of four diplomats from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had been declared "persona non grata" and must leave the country within seven days.

It added that the Baltic states "continue to conduct an openly hostile course towards our country, in this case hiding behind pseudo-solidarity with the indiscriminate actions of the Czech Republic towards Russia".

In a separate statement the same day, the ministry also announced the expulsion of three diplomats from Slovakia, who were ordered to leave by May 5, and accused Bratislava of "false solidarity" with Prague.

Slovakia's actions "damage the traditionally friendly Russian-Slovak relations and constructive bilateral cooperation," the statement added.

Russian armored vehicles roll onto landing vessels after drills in Crimea in April. (RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE / AP)

Death knell

Agence France-Presse said the expulsions come as Russia's ties with the West have deteriorated to Cold War levels.

Samorukov said that combined with the different attitudes toward imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the diplomatic conflicts are likely to prompt European countries to significantly reduce cooperation with Russia on a wide range of issues, while existing projects will come under considerable pressure.

A new wave of sanctions and condemnation will not only sound the death knell for the prospect of selling the Russian vaccine to Europe, it will also likely affect areas in which cooperation has so far managed to continue, particularly the energy sector.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament is pushing a draft resolution demanding Moscow be excluded from SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The Parliament's members also insist on halting the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline and slapping sanctions on Russian oligarchs for corruption

Samorukov said, "It's hard to imagine in the current circumstances how the Nord Stream 2 pipeline-even if completed-could become fully operational. Russia's involvement in the construction of nuclear power plants in Bulgaria and Hungary will also run into new and possibly insurmountable difficulties."

However, Russian political analyst Alexander Rahr does not agree. "Regarding Nord Stream 2, I'm sure that nothing can stop this project. Europe is unlikely to sever ties with Moscow over Navalny," he said.

"This will continue to be an irritating factor because, for Europe, human rights remain one of the key issues. However, heavyweight European politicians understand that it's absurd to change historic relations over just one person," Rahr said.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Federation Council's (Russian upper house) Foreign Affairs Committee, said that in its relations with the EU, Russia relies on steps taken by Brussels, rather than calls made by the European Parliament.

Ivan Timofeev, program director at the Russian International Affairs Council, said, "Cutting Russia off from SWIFT will lead to very serious fluctuations on financial markets. The initiators won't achieve any political goals, but the damage will be huge-first of all for Russian-EU relations with their significant trade turnover.

"If they got away with such sanctions against Iran, they'd better not repeat this ploy with Russia, because the subsequent damage and political consequences will be much more serious than in the case with Teheran."

Russia, for its part, will dig deep in areas where it has the most influence, reacting even more harshly to any signs of what it considers to be Western interference, Timofeev said.

The latest allegations of a planned coup in Belarus show how hard it will be for that country to return to even a limited form of a multi-pronged foreign policy.

Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, said the dialogue between Moscow and the EU is far from over.

"Of course, no new Iron Curtain between Russia and the EU will fall from the sky. Their mutual humanitarian and economic relations remain very strong, despite some damage from sanctions, and cultural, and even political ties, remain intact," he said.

Lukyanov added that Russia and Europe are evolving into coolly polite neighbors that have no real interest in each other, but who are forced to interact simply because they coexist in close proximity.

A Ukrainian serviceman patrols a position on the frontline with militias based in the east of the country near the city of Marinka, Donetsk region, on April 12. (STR / AFP)

Troops massed

Meanwhile, tensions between Russia and Ukraine seem set to continue. After six years of an uneasy and at times violated truce, the specter of a new war looms large in relations between the two countries.

In retaliation for Kiev's recent crackdown on pro-Russian media and politicians, Moscow staged a large-scale and ostentatious military buildup along the Ukrainian border.

Although the EU claimed to continue to support implementation of the Minsk Agreements to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine within the Normandy Format, Russia has started to view Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky latest statements as an "official" reneging on the Minsk deal.

Zelensky said in an interview with the Financial Times published on April 26 that he believed it was necessary to make amendments to the Minsk Agreements, and proposed creating another format for talks on Donbass, which would involve "powerful players" and would operate alongside the Normandy Format grouping.

The Normandy Format refers to a group of diplomatic leaders from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France formed to resolve the crisis in Ukraine in accordance with the Minsk Agreements.

Meanwhile, during the past two weeks, Zelensky has spoken about the need for a summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, even instructing his chief of staff to launch preparations for such a meeting.

Russian newspaper Kommersant said Moscow had not discussed this matter with Kiev in detail, but is ready for a meeting.

Dmitry Peskov, Russian presidential spokesman, told the newspaper that The Kremlin is not opposed to a meeting with the Ukrainian leader. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Kommersant that Ukraine had not initiated discussion about a potential summit.

Ukrainian political analyst Vadim Karasev feels that a meeting between the two leaders is necessary.

"They haven't had a formal meeting for two years. Even if Moscow doesn't want to discuss Donbass, other issues can be touched on. For example, the accumulation of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border is an issue of bilateral relations, but we need to understand that no talk of normalizing relations with Russia can be entertained without at least partial resolution of the Donbass issue," Karasev said.

He is confident that even if Moscow declines a meeting, Zelensky will not "lose points", as he will be able to say he has done everything to resolve the Donbass issue with Russia.

Vladimir Fesenko, head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies in Kiev, said there are still many topics for discussion between the two presidents.

"What's important to us is Russia's blocking of waters in the Sea of Azov, the Kerch Strait, and the partial blocking of the Black Sea. There cannot be any normalization of bilateral relations until the hostilities in Donbass end. If things calm down there, the specter of war will dissipate and we'll be able to move forward," Fesenko said.

renqi@chinadaily.com.cn

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