Attacks by pro-Russian rebels threaten Ukraine truce
AFP Kiev, September 30, 2014 First Published: 15:04 IST(30/9/2014) Last Updated: 15:10 IST(30/9/2014)
Ukraine's truce and troops withdrawal deal lay in tatters on Tuesday after the deadliest wave of attacks by pro-Russian insurgents in more than a month left nine soldiers and four civilians dead.
Thirteen soldiers and civilians were killed in 24 hours, officials said on Monday, in the worst violence since the government and pro-Russian insurgents struck a shaky truce in their five-month conflict.
The European-brokered peace deal finalised a week ago in Minsk commits the Ukrainian army and rebels to cease fire and to separate themselves with a 30-kilometre (18-mile) buffer zone.
The insurgency has already killed more than 3,200 people according to UN figures and, despite the deal, a lasting solution seems no closer.
National Security and Defence Council spokesperson Andriy Lysenko said rebels had killed nine soldiers, including paratroopers travelling in an armoured vehicle.
Three civilians were killed in the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk, and another local person died in Makiyivka, a city just northwest of Donetsk, when a shell hit a residential house, local officials said.
Military officials said on Monday that separatists with tanks staged repeated attacks on the airport outside Donetsk, a strategic flashpoint, which were repelled by the army, despite losses.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stressed that the army would continue fighting if the insurgents failed to silence their guns and announced Sunday that the army had created a "reliable frontline" in the east.
A Russian army delegation of some 70 people arrived last week in eastern Ukraine, headed by the deputy commander of Russian ground forces, Alexander Lentsov. Several members of the delegation travelled to Donetsk to urge the separatists to respect the truce.
"We are going to convince (the rebels), use reason with them. That is the most important thing," Lentsov told Ukrainian television at the weekend, in rare public remarks by a Russian military commander.
Moscow denies having sent regular troops to eastern Ukraine, but Kiev argues that large contingents of soldiers and heavy equipment from Russia were behind a rebel offensive last month that seized control of a chunk of territory and forced the government to agree to the ceasefire.
The five-month conflict between Kiev and the separatists of Lugansk and Donetsk has prompted Western states to impose unprecedented sanctions on Russia, whose economy is already flatlining.
On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "if there is a continued violation of basic principles" in the ceasefire, Europe may have to go further and rethink its strong dependence on Russian energy supplies.
For the time being, "there is currently no way to remove the existing sanctions. Rather it is still necessary to continue the pressure within a reasonable political process," she said.
Moscow opens 'genocide' probe
For its part Moscow announced an investigation into alleged "genocide" of Russian-speaking people by Kiev's forces in the east.
The Investigative Committee, Russia's main crime-fighting body that normally does not have jurisdiction outside the country, announced the probe Monday, saying Ukrainian forces were responsible for killing at least 2,500 people and destroying more than 500 civilian buildings.
The splintered country's election season kicks off Tuesday, the final day of registration for Ukraine's snap parliamentary polls on October 26.
Poroshenko last month called the polls as a way of restoring public trust in the parliament, which was previously dominated by corruption-tainted allies of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.
The rebels say they will boycott the ballot and hold their own votes on November 2.
In a symbolic act of defiance against Russia, activists in Ukraine's second biggest city of Kharkiv toppled the country's largest statue of Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in the main square on Sunday.
Statues of Lenin, seen as symbols of the totalitarian Soviet past, were toppled throughout central Ukraine, including Kiev, during last winter's pro-Europe protests, which led to the ouster of the Russia-leaning Yanukovych.
But the Arctic Council has no regulatory power. The countries only use the Council to communicate on policy and research and each member state is free to pursue its own policies within their declared Arctic boundaries.
According to a presentation by the Council of Foreign Relations .. http://www.cfr.org/arctic/emerging-arctic/p32620#!/ , the Arctic is of primary strategic significance to the five bordering Arctic Ocean states — the U.S. (red), Canada (orange), Russia (grey), Norway (blue), and Denmark (green).
Council of Foreign Relations
Opening Up
The 1.1 million square miles of open water north of accepted national boundaries — dubbed the Arctic Ocean “donut hole” — is considered the high sea and is therefore beyond the Arctic states' jurisdictions.
As the Arctic ice melts, the area is predicted to become a center of strategic competition and economic activity. Last year, China signed a free trade agreement with Iceland and sent an icebreaker to the region despite having no viable claims in the Arctic.
Council on Foreign Relations
The Arctic summer sea ice is melting rapidly
Wildly rich
The region is stocked with valuable oil, gas, mineral, and fishery reserves. The U.S. estimates .. http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/11/u-s-unveils-military-strategy-arctic/ .. that a significant proportion of the Earth’s untapped petroleum — including about 15% of the world's remaining oil, up to 30% of its natural gas deposits, and about 20% of its liquefied natural gas — are stored in the Arctic seabed.
In front is Russia, which symbolically placed a Russian flag on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole in 2007. The country, one-fifth of which lies within the Arctic Circle, has by far the most amount of developed oil fields in the region.
Council on Foreign Relations
Russia's increasing advantage
CFR notes that many observers "consider Russia, which is investing tens of billions of dollars in its northern infrastructure, the most dominant player in the Arctic."
Shipping throughout the Arctic will also take on unprecedented importance as the ice recedes — and the Kremlin has a plan for taking advantage of this changing geography.
Russia wants the Northern Sea Route, where traffic jumped from four vessels in 2010 to 71 in 2013, to eventually rival the Suez Canal as a passage between Europe and Asia. And it could: The Northern Sea Route from Europe to Asia takes only 35 days, compared to a 48-day journey between the continents via the Suez Canal.
'A new Cold War'
Because of the Arctic's potential resources and trade impact, countries are stepping up military development in the region.
For years, Norway has been conducting "Operation Cold Response .. http://tinyurl.com/oe4ufa5 ." This year, the military exercise brought in more than 16,000 troops from 15 participating NATO members.
The US Navy attack submarine USS Annapolis (SSN 760) rests in the Arctic Ocean after surfacing through three feet of ice during Ice Exercise 2009 on March 21, 2009.
"Russia, the only non-NATO littoral Arctic state, has made a military buildup in the Arctic a strategic priority, restoring Soviet-era airfields and ports and marshaling naval assets," the CFR presentation explains. "In late 2013, President Vladimir Putin instructed his military leadership to pay particular attention to the Arctic, saying Russia needed 'every lever for the protection of its security and national interests there.' He also ordered the creation of a new strategic military command in the Russian Arctic by the end of 2014."
CFR notes that while most experts dismiss the prospects for armed aggression in the Arctic, "some defense analysts and academics assert that territorial disputes and a competition for resources have primed the Arctic for a new Cold War."
.. two standouts for me in this one (much cogdiss .. lol .. whether or not to post it all) are the 'unequivocal' statement that the polar route would not be in competition with the Suez as the one above suggests Russia would like it to be .. and the 'misinformation' contained in the south-of-the-Arctic press ..
New Arctic Report Predicts The Top Polar Risks for 2015
by Pakalolo Sun Jan 11, 2015 at 03:52 AM PST
A recently released report prepared by POLARISK .. http://www.polarisk-group.com/ .. highlights political, geo-political, security and regulatory economic risks in the polar regions for 2015. The report tries to answer one essential question.
"how will D.C. policymakers (re)define the role that both the US and the Arctic Council should play in the Arctic? For other Arctic players, including non-Arctic and near-Arctic stakeholders alike, much depends on America’s answer. Said differently, the coming year will be the one during which we will finally know if the US are ready to dare being an Arctic leader or keep playing their somewhat comfortable waiting game.
As Ian Bremmer would say: “the realities of a G-Zero order, a world of geopolitical creative destruction without global leadership, are evident.” 2015 will have companies and countries rethink their Arctic strategies to adapt to the changing regional geopolitical order. Overall, the Arctic and the Antarctic have close to nothing in common besides the fact that they will be HOT geopolitical flashpoints this year, yet again."
The report identifies and reports on the following risks in the rapidly warming Arctic as follows:
• Russia’s Arctic re-militarization
--- Arctic ice is melting before our eyes, In this regard, in order to understand the geo-strategic consequences of the Arctic’s increased navigability and exploitability, recent developments in the High North should be regarded not only from the perspective of the never ending competition against the West, but also from the perspective of Russia’s will to assert its authority and power in what it considers to be its backyard.
From a security standpoint, Russia’s Arctic military buildup is neither a response to NATO’s own build-up (there is none), nor a preventive response to a future NATO threat. On the one hand, communicating on its Arctic build-up helps Moscow assert its power and control on “its Arctic” onshore (vis-à-vis the local elites) and offshore (vis-à-vis western Arctic competing states). On the other hand, it helps Russia to establish itself as the key safety actor in the area. In a sense, Putin's Arctic projects, such as the fully operational availability of SAR bases by the end of 2014 on Russia's shoreline or the Russian Arctic Army program (100 bn USD per year for a RAA fully operational by 2020), are not only defensive but also the realization of a structural mastering of its Northern fringe.
Russia shall remain politically independent from the West, closing in with rising Asian powers when necessary. In that sense, President Putin is not more unpredictable than any other leader. Russia cannot afford to start a conflict in a first-shooter position today. Consequently, Putin applies an I.R. concept that has been long forgotten by many reporters and analysts: the notion of strategic surprise. Crimea was a strategic surprise, so can be the Arctic and Antarctic.
• The battle for the North Pole
--- Danish officials presented their claim to the United Nations for about 895,541 sq.km. beyond the coast of Greenland – an increase of more than 150,000 sq.km. compared with the original claim. The submission makes Denmark will become the first country to lay formal claim over a part of the Donut Hole, and especially over the geographic North Pole. The move will put Denmark in conflict with Canada and Russia. The three countries’ claims are expected to overlap one another because they each lay claim to parts of the Lomonosov Ridge, which stretches 1,800km from off the coast of Greenland and Canada to Siberia. At this point, Canada and Russia are still gathering data to support their own High Arctic claims.
• Global economic and financial markets
--- Going further, regardless of global spot prices, we have long argued that if Arctic energy developments are led by profitability rationales, almost half of Arctic oil and gas programs are actually primarily led by politically motivated geo-economic rationales. Located mostly in the Eurasian Arctic, most of them are onshore programs for a few offshore ones. Even if Cairn, Chevron and a few other companies have already canceled some of their Arctic plans for 2015; Even if the US brings one more million barrels a day on the global market as soon as Q2 2015 thanks to the lifting of crude oil export restrictions; Even if markets get panicked because Greece exits the Eurozone and a barrel of light crude costs $20; At the current level of sanctions hitting Russia, we expect at least Statoil, Rosneft, Gazprom, Lukoil, CNPC, CNOOC, Total and Petrovietnam will keep moving forward on their Arctic programs this year. ---
• Misinformation on the Arctic
--- Whether we read on security, economics, development, ice melt, geopolitics, and even social issues like the #Sealfie movement, what’s being printed in Arctic media gets very often distorted once the information crosses the Arctic Circle southward. Many journalists, desk analysts, and even experiencedacademics who are new to Arctic affairs make the same mistakes. They all talk ‘The Arctic’ when they should actually talk about the ‘Barents Arctic,’ the ‘Alaskan Arctic’, ‘Nunavut’, let alone name Arctic regions by their names, and so on. They often fail to discriminate onshore developments from offshore ones. They almost always fail to mention that the 2008 USGS study on hydrocarbon resources across the Arctic actually dismisses shales and several other non-conventional resources. Those reporting on infrastructure often place Arctic shipping routes in competition with the trans-Eurasian “new silk road”, the Suez, Panama and Nicaragua canals, when they actually don’t and won’t. ---
snip
--- We’ve decided to label inexact and biased reporting as a “top polar risk” because it has led to bad political and economic decision-making, already costing hundreds of millions of dollars to ill-informed investors, as well as leading to the publication of ill-informed yet official strategic assessments by several non-Arctic countries. ---
• China
--- In May 2013 in Kiruna, Russia wasn’t happy at all to let China become observer to the Arctic Council. Since then, Russia has started its pivot eastward. Moscow’s new best friends seems to be New Dehli, Pyongyang, Ulan Bator and Beijing. The bear and the dragon have always had this love-hate relationship but it now seems to be stuck on the “friends” mode. All Arctic projects considered, China is committed to invest more than $500bn in the Russian Arctic. What’s more? The central banks of China and Russia signed a 3-year ruble-yuan currency swap deal up to $25bn last October, a swap launched on December 29. Internationalizing the renminbi, Beijing plays long strategic game with ruble deal. And when the ruble crashed in mid-December, China did nothing less than bailing out Russia. ---
• Weaponization of the Canadian Arctic
--- The 2015 federal elections in Canada will bring a whole new level of implications for Northern Canada, and, in return, the main contenders will very much use Northern issues as propaganda elements. Said differently, Northern issues, which are poorly known in the general public but have strong political drama potential, are likely to be used as cheap weapons by the three main parties. ---
snip
--- With regards to the Canadian Forces’ capabilities in the Arctic, the campaign is first likely to revolve around procurement issues, namely whether Ottawa can buy icebreakers and what to choose between Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and Dassault’s Rafale Secondly, the campaign is very likely that two of the main stakes regarding the Canadian Forces capabilities in the Arctic will be both the Nanisivik Naval Facility and the Canadian Armed Forces Arctic Training Centre (CAFATC).
In fact, the Nanisivik Naval Facility will be constructed on the Baffin Island, Nunavut. It was announced by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in August 2007 that Nanisivik would have a docking and refueling facility for the Royal Canadian Navy. The facility would further maintain a Canadian military presence in the Arctic during the navigable season. ---
• Unsustainable developments
--- It is often mistakingly reported that France’ s Total has given up on the Arctic. If it is true that Total backed off from many projects — including a very promising JV with Russia’s Lukoil to hunt for shales in Eastern Siberia — the French oil company still has a 20% stake in Yamal LNG, alongside Novatek and CNPC.
What Total’s late CEO Christophe de Margerie said in a famous interview with the Financial Times back in 2012 was that Total would refrain from drilling in icy waters. The reason he then gave was as simple as can be: if an oil spill were to happened up there because of Total, its shares would be instantly worthless and the company would be bought off in a week.
He could have also added that such a spill would close down the Arctic market to nearly all Western company in record-time due to the fact that the event would have brought public scrutiny levels on Arctic stuff to record heights. Indeed, together with political, regulatory and operation risks, reputational risk is undoubtedly the most important aspect of any Polar investment. Reputation risk applies to companies, individuals and countries alike. ---
snip
--- That said, such reputational risks have never bothered most Russian and Chinese Arctic operators. Western companies know they must engage in true corporate social esponsibility efforts. Some play the game, some don’t — and lose more than 5 billion USD playing like Shell in Alaska. Eastern companies and investors tend to overlook sustainability and transparency gains… until they become hard costs. ---
• Arctic protests
--- Greenpeace attempted some spectacular offshore publicity stunt every summer since 2007, feeding the media frenzy surrounding the exploration of Arctic resources. Beware, oil rig owners and operators… in 2015, they will be back!
These questionable stunts in remote areas may be a clever way for them to garner extra-Arctic financial support, but the slightest miscalculation could result in a human disaster. The line between what is ‘civil disobedience’ and what constitutes an attack is thin. ---
snip
--- In 2015, we expect Greenpeace to aim even further eastward, going after Shell in London, in the Netherlands and in Alaska. ---
• Other polar issues
COP 21 - PARIS
--- In December, the world meets in Paris to try to reach a consensus on a binding treaty on carbon emission reductions and the creation of the global green fund. France has chosen to include “the fate of the Arctic” as part of the debates despite it being a possible dealbreaker. France will publish an Arctic roadmap this Spring with more details — that being the first step towards France crafting a formal Arctic strategy. ---
ICELAND FX CONTROLS LIFT
--- Encouraged by positive growth rates, inflation below the target and a considerable trade surplus, the Governor of the Icelandic Central Bank recently revealed that “currency controls will be gone in 2015 or early in 2016.” The Icelandic economy may ready to cope with the lift, but will Icelandic banks appear credible again to foreign investors and FX shorting traders think they are? ---
EUROPEAN UNION’S FIRST ARCTIC STRATEGY
--- As requested by the European Council, the European Commission will publish the EU’s first official Arctic strategy by December 2015. Russia’s expected veto regarding the EU’s full accession to observer status at the Arctic Council’s Iqaluit ministerial meeting may have an impact on the way the EU promotes its strategy and on the way its Arctic member-states respond to the document. ---
ARCTIC ECONOMIC COUNCIL
--- Finally created after 18 years of gestation, the AEC is the main success of the Canadian Arctic Council chairmanship. It is the first states-sponsored pan-Arctic forum for economic affairs gathering experts and business leaders from all Arctic Council member states. The US will have the pursue the work initiated by Canada and will have to welcome experts and business leadersfrom non Arctic Council member states to ---
GENERAL ELECTIONS IN FINLAND
--- An EU member state, Finland may be greatly hurt by the russian sanctions this year, with up to 200.000 jobs being in jeopardy. Discussions on security, NATO, Russia’s airspace violations & increased SIGINT capacities across the Lapland border, will be campaign feats to watch. ---
THULE AIR BASE
--- During Greenland’s 2014 snap election, the US Department of Defense terminated its decades-longcooperation with Danish service company Greenland Con regarding the daily management of USAF’s Thule Air Base (Northwest Greenland). The 21st CSD 1 at the US Embassy in Copenhagen, responsible for contract negotiations, chose Vectrus to service the air base for the next seven years. Vectrus is a Danish subsidiary of the well-known Virginia-based military contractor Exelis Inc. Capitol Hill has made it very clear this past summer: US Arctic military assets shall be maintained and serviced by US businesses so as to restore a certain level of independence vis-à-vis Arctic operations. While it upsets Greenland’s opposition party Inuit Ataqatigiit, it seems the State Department and the DOD agreed with the GOP.
Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
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