Oxford Analytica Daily Brief ®

Moscow will try to diminish Ukraine's role in talks

Wednesday, August 24 2016

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Ukraine in a phone call with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande yesterday, the Russian
leader's office said. Fears of imminent conflict sparked by Moscow's allegation that
Ukraine sent covert forces into Crimea have receded, but the crisis demonstrates the
strength of Russian-Ukrainian mistrust and the risk of rapid escalation. The threat of a Landing ship Caesar Kunikov fires
Russian invasion was enough to rattle Western governments even if Moscow never missiles during the Navy Day
intended to follow it through. celebrations in Sevastopol, Crimea
(Reuters/Pavel Rebrov)

What next
Impact
Conflict over Crimea would involve open war between Russia and Ukraine, in contrast to
• Lack of progress on a
the Donbas region where Moscow claims not to be involved militarily. Neither country
Ukrainian settlement could
appears willing to risk hostilities at this point. The power balance favours Russia as it
prompt Moscow to engineer
exploits tensions over Crimea and other issues in efforts to discredit the Kyiv government
an escalation in fighting in the
and gain more leverage in the international peace talks on Ukraine.
Donbas region.

Analysis
• The aim of increasing the level
After Crimea was annexed by Russia in March 2014, attention in Kyiv, Moscow and of warfare would be to force a
Western capitals shifted to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. revision of the Minsk 2.0
peace agreement on terms
favourable to Russia.
Ukraine still asserts its sovereignty, supported by the international community, but Crimea
has ceased to be the principal disputed issue. Moscow has focused on building up the
Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol and on supporting Crimea's faltering economy (see • Moscow will mix military
UKRAINE: Crimean leaders will resist Moscow's control - June 8, 2016). threats with persuasion to
weaken EU resolve on
sanctions.
The peninsula suddenly became the scene of a potential descent into war when the
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) issued a statement on August 10 saying that
three groups of Ukrainian nationals crossed into Crimea on August 7-8, engaged Russian
forces there and killed one soldier and an FSB officer.

Theories abound as to what actually happened:

• Ukrainian military intelligence sent in saboteurs to destroy key infrastructure (the FSB
account).

• There was a raid, but it involved a Ukrainian irregular unit and had no official approval.

• There was no incursion: the FSB staged the whole thing.

• The firefight was between a group of deserters from Russian forces in Crimea and an
army unit sent to hunt them down.

Russian fury

The facts of the matter were swiftly overtaken by concerns about what Russia planned to
do. The rhetoric from Moscow was unusually strong even given the poor state of relations Russia's intentions matter
with Kyiv. more than whether its claims
are true
Putin was the first to comment within hours of the FSB statement on August 10,
underlining how seriously the matter was being taken. He accused Ukraine of backing
terrorism and said the two deaths would not go unpunished.

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Oxford Analytica Daily Brief ®
Moscow will try to diminish Ukraine's role in talks

This raised questions about what form the response might take, up to and including a
military offensive northwards of Crimea and hence a formal declaration of war.

The escalation came soon after Russian frontier guards closed border crossings in
northern Crimea and convoys of heavy weapons were seen on the move. This heightened
fears that Moscow was creating the pretext for invasion.

In recent months, the Russian military has also built up forces close to Ukraine's eastern
flank, creating new units and moving others up from other parts of the country.

Denial from Kyiv

Ukraine flatly denied that any of its troops had entered Crimea. President Petro
Poroshenko called the accusations "fantasies".

Immediately following Putin's remarks, Kyiv initiated an emergency meeting of the UN

Security Council to discuss Crimea developments. Predictably, this did not lead to a
resolution being passed, given Russia's power of veto.

The next day, August 11, Poroshenko put the Ukrainian military on high alert near Crimea
and rebel-held territories in Donbas. Russia did the same.

Poroshenko also raised the option of declaring Ukraine to be in a state of war, the first time
he had done so in two years of armed conflict.

Threat of diplomatic rupture

One form of retaliation mooted in Moscow was breaking off diplomatic relations with Kyiv.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev suggested as much on August 10. However, this line
softened so that five days later Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made it clear this was not
the plan. When Putin visited Crimea on August 19, he spoke of the need to maintain
diplomatic relations.

Ukraine, too, wants to maintain diplomatic ties, although shortly before the Crimean crisis
it refused to accept a new Russian ambassador. It has since confirmed this as its official
position on the grounds that the current state of the bilateral relationship does not require
representation at ambassadorial level.

Peace process

In his initial comments, Putin said he saw no need to go ahead with the round of
'Normandy format' talks with his German, French and Ukrainian counterparts due to take
place on the fringes of the September 4-5 G-20 summit in China.

It looked as though Crimea offered a convenient opportunity -- perhaps a manufactured one

-- to halt negotiations on implementing the Minsk 2.0 agreement.

Moscow has grown frustrated at Kyiv's slowness to legislate for and hold elections in rebel
-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russia and its local allies want the polls to Moscow's aim is to shut
be held swiftly while the current political and military situation holds, so as to legitimise Ukraine out of negotiations by
existing leaders (see UKRAINE: Rebels' independence hopes will fade - August 9, 2016). discrediting it

Ukraine insists that security and peace must be restored before anything like fair elections
can happen, but it is under some pressure to start the process from US and European
allies. They are weary of stalemate and have domestic political reasons for seeking some
kind of closure sooner rather than later and lifting the sanctions they imposed on Moscow
(see UKRAINE: Conflict risks will rise as peace talks stall - March 9, 2016).

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Oxford Analytica Daily Brief ®
Moscow will try to diminish Ukraine's role in talks

After his August 15 meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Lavrov
suggested that quadripartite talks would be useful after all. Putin's office indicated
yesterday that he would meet Merkel and Hollande on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting,
but made no mention of Poroshenko, suggesting he wanted to exclude Ukraine from what
were meant to be four-party talks.

That suggests that Moscow will keep talking while using Crimea and similar incidents to
press the West to force action in Kyiv. That may not have been Moscow's intention a week
earlier: the strength and nature of its response are likely to have evolved over the
intervening period.

International pressure

The softening of Moscow's position on diplomatic relations and the subsequent toning
down of its rhetoric on the Crimean crisis as a whole are probably attributable to external
pressure.

The US State Department underlined that Crimea belonged to Ukraine and that it had seen
no evidence to support Russian claims of an incursion. The EU response came later, but
was essentially in step with the US position, calling on both parties to exercise restraint
and reiterating its non-recognition of Russia's claim to Crimea.

© Oxford Analytica 2016. All rights reserved

No duplication or transmission is permitted without the written consent of Oxford Analytica
Contact us: T +44 1865 261600 (North America 1 800 965 7666) or oxan.to/contact