In an article entitled, "Failure of oil price war may cost Putin dear", David Gardner (left) writes that,"Igor Sechin, chief of Rosneft, the state oil company, and long one of Russia’s most powerful men, wrote to Mr Putin last year, before Moscow changed tack on Opec+, complaining that its output restraints had “created a preferential advantage for the US . . . which has become a strategic threat to Russia’s oil industry development”.
If Mr Putin did indeed buy the Sechin thesis, that was surely a mistake. ... But Opec+ is not delivering." Financial Times : 30 April 2020) (my emphasis)
The Intelligence Unit of 'The Economist' now forecast that,"Tensions with the West are high and we expect EU and US sanctions to remain in place in 2020-24.
...
Russia has become more resilient to external shocks since 2014, but the dual shock of collapsed global oil prices and deteriorating domestic demand amid the coronavirus outbreak will result in an economic contraction of 5.2% in 2020." (The Economist Intelligence Unit : 19 May 2020) (my emphasis)
More disconcerting for Putin, The Moscow Times have just reported that,"Russian GDP Falls 28% in April
The Russian economy contracted by more than a quarter in April, calculations based on official government statistics have shown. Using the first batch of official data on the damage from the coronavirus and Russia’s nationwide shutdown of the economy, Russia’s GDP in April was 28% smaller in nominal terms than in the same period last year, economists said. " (The Moscow Times : 20 May 2020) (my emphasis)
It is therefore no wonder that Putin is now trying to use the corona-virus pandemic to have EU and US sanctions against him and his 'siloviki' lifted.
Having previously failed in his argument that, "sanctions hinder the fight against the corona, trying to win hearts of certain EU member states" (UNIAN:19 May 2020), Putin is now desperately, "planning to act through the platform of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), "the structure Moscow pretty much fully controls." (ibid UNIAN)
As reported by UNIAN,
"The statement [of the CIS prime ministers’ meeting on May 29] will urge all countries to abandon trade wars, unilateral sanctions introduced bypassing the UNSC, and other measures of economic pressure or coercion on the part of certain state actors against others. Signatories will reaffirm their intention to seek free, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, predictable and stable conditions for trade and investment," the leaked draft shows." (UNIAN: 19 May 2020) (my emphasis)
Putin's panic as his Russian economy falls around his knees is, according to Sarah Rainsford, causing him to,
" ... run out of patience with coronavirus.
On Monday he sent millions of workers back to factories and building sites across Russia, declaring six weeks of full lockdown over.
Regional leaders have been left to manage exactly how and when they lift the remaining restrictions, with the infection rate still stubbornly high - especially in Moscow." (BBC News : 15 May 2020) (my emphasis)
And against this backdrop of a failing Health System and a collapsing economy in Russia, Putin continues to lash out against Ukraine.
As reported by UNIAN,
"Russia's hybrid military forces on May 18 mounted 11 attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. "The Russian Federation's armed formations violated the ceasefire 11 times in the past day," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in a Facebook update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on May 19, 2020." (UNIAN : 18 May 2020) (my emphasis)
And yet ... and yet ...
"LPR", "DPR" envoys in Minsk talks have status of persons "invited" by Russia, Ukrainian official stresses" .. so screams the UNIAN headline.
"The Ukrainian side is looking for a way to negotiate with the participation of real representatives of Donbas, from among internally displaced persons, to have this type of consultations supported by the OSCE and the Normandy Four." (UNIAN : 18 May 2020) (my emphasis)
The fact that Ukraine has always insisted that, ".. any direct negotiations with Russian-controlled militants are off the table", and that these Putin-controlled 'militants' now sport Russian passports that Putin has ILLEGALLY given to thousands of Donbas Ukrainians, do these illegal passports of Putin's 'militants' now suddenly confer upon them the status of 'Russian representatives'???
So, it would seem, according to(i) Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister,
(ii) Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories,
(iii) First Deputy Representative of Ukraine to the Trilateral Contact Group for the Donbas settlement,
Oleksiy Reznikov (left).
This 'legal sleigh-of-hand' in bringing Putin's Donbas militant proxies to the consulting process, ostensibly to 'satisfy' all the conditions of the Minsk2 protocols, smacks of nothing more nor less than to hold aloft a Donbas Peace Plan, similar to the one held aloft by Neville Chamberlain in 1939, and signed by Adolf Hitler.
Yet it was precisely the actions of the Putin-controlled representatives of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the predecessors of the current "holders of Russian passports" representatives that Oleksiy Reznikov now views as "legal Russian representatives", that allowed Putin to spark of his war with Ukraine in the Donbas in the first place.
History, it would seem, is repeating itself.
Putin will simply NOT allow his grip over areas of the Donbas and Ukraine's Crimea to be released.
The critical question is,
"Will not Oleksiy Reznikov's 'legal-sleigh-of-hand' tighten Putin's grip over the Donbas?"
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