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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Grain war in the Black Sea

By Nina Bachkatov

Three months after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, a new front has been open – about grain’s exports and global food security. The concept was hardly mentioned before the fall of Mariupol, when international attention switched from the fights around Azovstal to the inaccessibility of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. The accent has been put on its global consequences, from the prices’ increase of basic food in the West to the risk of famine in poor countries. In a couple of weeks, Westerners preoccupied with energy bills discovered that a third of the 200-300m tonnes of cereals exchanged yearly through the world were coming from Russia and Ukraine.

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Strange victory day in Moscow

Nina Bachkatov

The address of president Putin during the 9 May Victory Parade on Red square was shorter than usual. The number of men and equipment was reduced by 30%compared to previous years; seats on the side of Lenin’s Mausoleum, traditionally packed with foreign diplomats and officials, were sparsely occupied. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, had anticipated unpleasant questions by announcing that no invitations had been sent to former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, nor to Germany or Japan, because it was not an even date, just the 77 th anniversary; and that the event will be scaled down. The surprise was not so much about what Putin said, but what he didn’t.

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The orphans of Vladimir Zhirinovsky

Nina Bachkatov

The picture of President Putin dropping the traditional red carnations on the coffin of Vladimir Zhirinovsky might look like another episode of contemporary Russia’s charade. But the death, on 6 April, of the 75-year-old ultranationalist, leaves a hole in the political landscape that has been built in Russia during the last 30 years. Zherenovsky’s latest speech at the Duma, in December 2022, has been so extravagant, even by his standards, that it was received as another sign of his mental decline. It included his description of 2022 as “a year when Russia finally becomes great once again, and everyone has to shut up and respect our country”.

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Ukraine, the diplomatic dilemnas

Nina Bachkatov

On 24 March, a month after Russian forces crossed Ukrainian borders, president Bidden was in Brussels for meetings of EU, NATO and G7. Members were due to reinforce the united front against president Putin by agreeing to deliver more military aide for Ukraine, to enlarge sanctions against Russia, and to adopt a strategic “compass” that will guide Western powers in their relations with Russia. A country now perceived as a threat to almost everything that matters in the West. Participants were moved by the video address of the Ukrainian president calling for more Western efforts, and new sanctions more radical than those they were prepared to launch. But the representatives of the 3 institutions that gathered for two days in Brussels have been rallying around the idea once popular among Cold warriors minded milieux – that Putin does not want to destroy Ukraine, but all the democratic world.

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President Zelensky’s communicator limits

Nina Bachkatov

Ukrainian president Zelensky is a master in communication, tuning his messages according to the receiver, national or international, while hammering the same existential message –  that the survival of Ukraine is threatened and that he needs foreign aid to allow his citizens to save it. He has multiplied live video addresses to different Western parliaments ahead of their sessions, whose agenda already included measures to back Ukraine and to deter president Putin. In each case, his speeches were skillfully carved to string national fibers, from salute to Churchill to that of the American president as leader of the world.

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As the Ukrainian crisis is unfolding

By Nina Bachkatov

It is impossible to compete with the flow of information, reports on the spot and inside analysis covering the multilayered dimension of Ukraine’s invasion by Russian armed forces. But some elements are worth to mention at this stage.

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