Vladimir Socor, a Senior Fellow of the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, said there are pertinent reasons for the whole region to be concerned about an eventual military conflict in Ukraine. According to the expert, the Biden administration lost control over the talks with Russia and a potential war is now a more plausible scenario. Russia aims to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence and wants this to be federalized, IPN reports.
Expert Vladimir Socor said the goal of Russia is to bring back Ukraine within Moscow’s orbit and to keep the country in a state of uncertain federalization without the possibility of joining the European community.
“Russia’s objective is to integrate Ukraine into a state construct of neo-Soviet type under the administration of Russia, to block the integration of Ukraine into the West and to manage a crumbled, federalized and neutral Ukraine – neutral on paper, but allied with Russian in practice. The goal of the U.S. is much more limited than Russia’s. This is to reach a provisional solution over Ukraine so as to enable the U.S. to concentrate its material, political resources in the confrontation with China,” Vladimir Socor stated in the program “Expertise Hour” on JurnalTV channel.
He noted that the Biden administration is considering the possibility of suspending the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, not of resolving this. The United States wants peace and stability to be ensured in the region by keeping a frozen conflict in Ukraine.
“The Biden administration came to power decided to launch a confrontation with China. For the purpose, the administration needs relative peace in Central and Eastern Europe and therefore needs an agreement with Russia. The Biden administration tried to reach such an agreement with Russia back last year, when it made major concessions at Ukraine’s expense. Namely, it officially withdrew the U.S.’s support for Ukraine’s entry into NATO, gave up imposing the sanctions that had been already adopted by the U.S. Congress against the Nord-Stream2 gas pipeline and announced that it supports the settlement of the conflict in Donbas based on the Minsk agreements. It made three major concessions in favor of Russia during a year. But Russia’s ambitions are much greater and the Biden administration lost control over this process,” said Vladimir Socor.
On February 14, the United States closed its embassy in Kiev and moved the few remaining diplomats to Lvov amid the “dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces” on the border. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on all the U.S. citizens in Ukraine to immediately leave the country. U.S. officials anticipate an eventual Russian invasion of Ukraine later this week.
