The fickering of E.U.’s energy security

By Nina Bachkatov

In a month time, the EU should implement a ban adopted in full coordination with its G7 partners to end its oil dependency from Russia. The ban will unfold in two stages: the first, on 5 December 2022, concerns the crude oil; the second,  on 5 February 2023, will stop imports of refined petroleum products. This is in the line with the 8 packages of EU sanctions, mostly directed against energy imports from Russia. Already, Gazprom’s deliveries have been cut down by two thirds and are due to drop further. Coal and civilian nuclear produces are already sidelined, and Westinghouse has been more or less discreetly ‘contacting’ countries that had previously used Rosatom services. Energy specialists have published converging reports according to which, if things stay as they are, the West can face the winter without the anticipated level of sufferings. This results from combined decisions to fill storage’s facilities during the autumn, a political readiness to release strategic reserves in case of shortages; and the mobilisation of all the users to reduce their energy’s consumption.

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EU “diversified” aid to Ukraine

By Nina Bachkatov

The EU carries on with the preparation of its 20-21 October during which China will be the elephant in the room and all the complexity of the war in Ukraine the centre piece. After 8 months of violence and devastations, the EU is confronted with the full consequences of the sanctions it had imposed on Russian individuals and companies to undermine president Putin leadership and to starve Russia’s budgetary capacities to sustain a war.

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Putin’s new approach about Ukraine

By Nina Bachkatov

The successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, backed by Western new weapons and shared intelligence resources, obliged president Putin to come out. It took the form of a televised address to the nation, against a background of leakages and unusual stage crafting. It was first due to take place on the 20th evening, then it was postponed for the next day, at 8, then at 9 o’clock. That was enough to unleash new speculation concerning Putin’s physical and moral condition. The usual well-informed sources said that he had been so affected by fever and coughs that he was unable to face the cameras, despite the dispatch of a large medical staff; and that the program shown as a single tirade was in fact a re-mix of interrupted sessions.

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The end of Mikhail Gorbachev, an unheroic hero

By Nina Bachkatov

A deluge of comments has been published since the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, passed away on 30 August. No doubts he was different from his predecessors, notably by his approach of power and image well before P.R. invaded political action. After his election as general secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party, in March 1985, Soviet media had published his official pictures, in line with decades old traditions of portraying leaders with smooth faces defying age – and reality. Gorbachev immediately banned the practice, ordering his pictures to show the characteristic red spots on his scalp.

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Another war in Donbass

By Nina Bachkatov

The Russian offensive in the Donbass on 19 April has been changing the face of the war in Ukraine. For the Kremlin, it was the opportunity to come back with its original narrative about a “special operation” forced upon itself as guarantor of its “brothers”’ security and freedom. Brothers, who supposedly, were threatened by Ukrainian “neo-nazis” who seized power in Kiev and Western Ukraine in 2014 and who trapped them in a pocket territory.  For president Zelensky, the Donbass offensive was the sign that the Kremlin, unable to seize Kiev, was coming back from the East, backed by separatist forces, with the intention to destroy Ukraine as a nation and a state.

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An orgy of summits around Ukraine and global competition

By Nina Bachkatov

In recent weeks, world’s leaders have been running from a summit to another one. Among Western allies, the key words were unity and solidarity; among the others, it was about multipolarity and convergence. But the background of all those diplomatic activities have been, and will be for a while, the war in Ukraine and its global consequences. There is also the growing awareness that the cost of the military operation and sanctions are indeed bleeding Russia, but much more Ukraine.

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EU confronted with too many candidacies

By Nina Bachkatov

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Europeans have never left any doubts about their support for the victim of an aggression by a country already identified as the main threat to the continent’s security and to the Western values. Now, in a couple of weeks, this support has, and will be, tested. In an acceleration initiated from Brussels, EU found itself facing a decisive step in his development. It has to decide by the end of June to grant, or not, the status of candidates to EU membership to Ukraine, lately extended to Georgia and Moldova. This normally very slow process changed gear on 8 April. During her visit in Kiev, the EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen handed to “dear Volodymyr” the questionnaire his country had to complete it if wants to receive EU candidate status. It consists in 2 parts: one contains political and economic criteria and the second one includes an evaluation of the compliance of Ukrainian legislation with the legal acts of the European Union.

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