“Many common interests and a shared culture in fact link the EU and Russia. That is why the EU strategy aims at engaging Russia in some specific issues,” the EU had been planning to say in its ‘Strategic Compass’, according to a previous draft dated 9 November.

But the latest version of the text, dated 6 January and seen by EUobserver, cut out the warm words.

“The European Union remains committed to a united, long-term, and strategic European approach [toward Russia],” it said instead.

The Strategic Compass, when it is finally agreed in March, will underpin EU thinking on defence for the next decade, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian noted on Friday (14 January) after having discussed it with his EU peers in Brest, France.

“Russia wants to go back in time to when the EU didn’t exist and Europe was subject to the spheres of influence of great powers,” EU top diplomat Josep Borrell also said.

They spoke after relations with Moscow nosedived during the past two months over Russia’s military build up around Ukraine and its increasingly aggressive rhetoric.

And they both warned of “massive” EU and US sanctions against Russia if it invaded its neighbour once again.

Borrell also pointed the finger at Russia over a cyber-attack on Ukrainian government websites the same day.

There was no hard “evidence” of Russia’s culpability, Borrell said.

“But I can imagine with a certain probability … where it [the cyber-attack] came from,” he added.

In a further nod to Russia’s malign activities, the new draft of the Strategic Compass also spoke of a “deconstruction of the security architecture in Europe inherited from the Cold War, from the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, to the Open Skies Treaty, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty”.

It voiced fresh concern on Russia-type “hybrid tactics such as cyber-attacks and disinformation, direct interference in our elections and political processes, economic coercion and the instrumentalisation of irregular migration flows”.

It also added that countries such as Georgia and Ukraine faced “hostile interference by Russia and the extensive use of hybrid tactics, [which] compromise their stability and their democratic processes and have direct implications for our own security”.

And it alluded to Russia’s increasingly aggressive behaviour in Africa, such as deployments of Russian mercenaries in the Central African Republic and Mali.

“We are witnessing a growing presence of our strategic competitors from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa,” the new draft added.

In the meantime, Le Drian also noted that he and German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock will visit Ukraine’s front line in the near future.

But Baerbock will first go to Kyiv and Moscow on her own on Monday and Tuesday.

“Personally, it is very important to me that we intensively use the different channels of conversation,” she said in Brest.

The centerpiece of the Strategic Compass – to create a new EU rapid-reaction military force – remained unchanged.

But the latest draft also contained new warnings on China.

“Russia and China are expanding their nuclear arsenal and developing new weapon systems,” it added.

“China has been substantially developing its military means and aims to have the technologically most advanced armed forces by 2049, impacting regional and global security,” it also added.

Jihadism
It contained several extra paragraphs on counterterrorism – a special priority of the French EU presidency.

Threats included “a combination of home grown terrorists, foreign fighter returnees, attacks directed, encouraged or inspired from abroad, as well as the propagation of ideologies and beliefs that lead to radicalisation and violent extremism”, it added, for instance.

But it mentioned only jihadist groups in this context, even though far-right groups carried out more attacks than Islamist ones in Europe in recent times.

In other changes, the new draft accelerated a deadline for a new EU Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity from 2025 to 2023.

It spoke of Europe’s need to invest in “quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data”.

It mentioned as a “core interest” the need to “support Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single, united and sovereign country”, amid a mounting threat of secession by its Serb entity.

Iran was “likely to remain an important source of regional instability through its direct and indirect support to political and military proxies and through the proliferation and dissemination of weapons, including transfer of missiles”, it added

And the EU should “increase … investment in peace and stability of the Middle East and the Gulf”, it also added.

Source: https://euobserver.com/world/154094

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Ukraine has been hit by a “massive cyber attack”, knocking a number of key government websites offline and issuing a warning to the public to “expect the ​​​​​​​worst”.

The disruption comes at a time of extreme tensions with Russia, which has massed around 100,000 troops at Ukraine’s boarder.

Ukrainian cyber police launched an investigation into the attack and have yet to attribute blame.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “It’s too early to draw conclusions, but there is a long record of Russian assaults against Ukraine.”

Websites for the foreign ministry, national security and defence council and the government’s cabinet of ministers were among those affected.

The foreign ministry spokesman said: “As a result of a massive cyber attack, the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of other government agencies are temporarily down.

“Our specialists are already working on restoring the work of IT systems, and the cyber police opened an investigation.”

The government said the content of the sites had not been changed, and no personal data was leaked.

‘We can imagine who is behind it’

It said in a statement that a number of other government websites had been suspended to prevent the attack from spreading to other resources, but most of those affected were quickly restored.

Asked whether Russia was suspected as being behind the attack, the spokesman said: “It’s too early to draw conclusions, but there is a long record of Russian assaults against Ukraine.”

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the attack, saying he “has no evidence who was responsible”, but “we can imagine who is behind it”.

An emergency EU meeting has been called to respond, he added.

Were any other websites affected?

The education ministry website was also impacted.

By midday Ukrainian time (10am UK) some of the websites were back online though the foreign and education ministry websites still seemed to be down.

“Due to the global attack on the night of Jan. 13-14, 2022, the official website of the Ministry of Education and Science is temporarily down,” the ministry said on Facebook.

On some of the websites, a text in three languages – Ukrainian, Polish and Russian – said all data of Ukrainians uploaded to the network had become public.

“Ukrainian! All your personal data was uploaded to the public network. All data on the computer is destroyed, it is impossible to restore it,” the message reads.

“All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future.”

Why would Russia be suspected?

Russia has repeatedly been accused of cyber attacks against Ukraine, including far more serious cyber assaults such as targeting critical national infrastructure such as power.

Cyber attacks against websites are a much less sophisticated and less harmful form of attack.

Russian cyber attacks previously accompanied military support to separatists in the east of the country following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.

Western officials have been concerned about possible new cyber attacks as tensions mount over the potential for a new Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The targeting of Ukrainian government websites comes at the end of a week of international diplomacy over Ukraine between Russia, the US, and NATO allies that ended without agreement and with both sides signaling worse hostilities could follow.

Russia said dialogue was continuing but was hitting a dead end as it tried to persuade the West to bar Ukraine from joining NATO and roll back decades of alliance expansion in Europe – demands that the US has called “non-starters”.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-says-massive-cyber-attack-has-shut-down-government-websites-12515487

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Vladimir Putin must be thrilled as he gears up for a week of high-stakes diplomacy between the Kremlin and Western powers. A series of conferences and summits is planned in Geneva, Brussels, Vienna and Brest, France that all aim to serve the same purpose: keeping the Russian president in a good mood and averting a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The diplomatic flurry kicked off in December with two telephone conversations between the American and Russian presidents.

That was followed by a video conference of NATO foreign ministers on Friday, in which the “Western” position on Russia was hammered out.

United States President Joe Biden has promised to closely consult with the Europeans on this issue, and he has stuck to his word. On Monday, top US representatives are set to hold “strategic talks” with Russians delegates in Geneva.

NATO mulls way forward

On Wednesday, there will be a meeting in Brussels of the NATO-Russia Council, a consultation forum that hasn’t met in several years. At the same time, NATO’s military chiefs of staff will come together to consider troop reinforcements on the Black Sea or NATO’s eastern border.

On Thursday, talks will continue in the broader format of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes the US as well as Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

The European Union, too, is determined not to be left out. EU defense and foreign ministers will meet in the French town of Brest on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. As with all the other planned conferences, the main topic on the agenda will be Russian demands for security guarantees and possible reactions to an escalation by Putin in Ukraine.

EU sidelined on European security

The main takeaway is that the Russian president has managed to get the “West” scrambling, laying bare differing viewpoints in the opposing camp. When it comes to the relationship with Russia, there are clear differences within NATO and the EU, depending on the interests of the member states.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has even complained that the bloc has been left out — he said he wasn’t even asked — when it came to security in Europe and in Ukraine.

To date, the Europeans have not managed to agree on exactly which tough sanctions they want to use to threaten Russia. The only thing the EU has decided is that Moscow should have a high price to pay if it escalates its aggression against Ukraine.

Compromise for the Kremlin

The EU is understandably reluctant to target the sector that would really hurt Russia, namely energy supplies. Without oil and gas from Russia, several countries in Europe, including Germany, would be in serious trouble.

Putin will probably not have to reckon with any serious resolutions being taken during this intense week of diplomacy. It’s likely that we’ll simply see the same warnings that have been issued since 2014, when Russia first deployed its troops on Ukraine’s eastern border.

Neither the US nor other NATO states will be deploying their own military to assist Ukraine. And it remains out of the question that NATO will respond favorably to Moscow’s demand that NATO categorically deny membership to Ukraine and Georgia.

Western powers will not accept Russian blackmail, and Putin knows that very well. However, Biden has already assured the Kremlin that the accession of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO is not on the agenda for the foreseeable future. After all, this state of limbo has existed since the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest.

Keeping the dialogue going
euvering, relying on diplomacy in a bid not to provoke military action by Russia. And Putin will keep the West on its toes with his deliberate provocations.

Putin will keep the conflicts in and around Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia simmering in order to prevent these countries from moving closer to the West. For him, the West, which couldn’t even organize its own withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, seems militarily indecisive in the extreme.

For now, Putin won’t expand the war against Ukraine, which he started back in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea. After all, the unpredictable Russian president has basically achieved what he wants.

The US, NATO and the EU will want to keep talking, counting on the fact that Putin cannot afford a full-blown war on the domestic front and at a time when he is busy consolidating his influence in Kazakhstan.

This upcoming week of intense diplomacy is unlikely to be the last. And that is hugely valuable in itself: People who talk to each other usually don’t shoot at each other.

This opinion piece was originally written in German.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-putin-gets-his-way-as-west-scrambles/a-60368080

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According to the final statement on relations with Russia, adopted on Friday, the EU leaders could not agree on the initiative of Germany and France to hold an EU-Russia summit meeting, it is not mentioned in the final document.

The European Council noted its openness to electoral dialogue with Russia on issues of interest to the EU. The Council has instructed the European Commission and EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell to develop concrete opportunities for this to be discussed with the Council on topics such as climate and environmental protection, health, selected foreign and security policy issues, including relations with Iran, Syria, and Libya, the document says.

In addition, EU leaders reiterated their call for Russia to implement the Minsk agreements and announced their readiness to support civil society, human rights organizations, and independent media in Russia. They announced that they will deepen political dialogue and association with the countries of the Eastern Partnership program, in particular with Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, and develop cooperation with the states of Central Asia. The summit welcomed the introduction by the EU Council on Thursday of economic sanctions against Belarus, called for an end to the persecution of the opposition in this country, and the release of all detained oppositionists.

Source: https://news.am/eng/news/650812.html

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EU leaders agreed Friday to plan for sanctions against Russia but rejected a push for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the EU summit in Brussels, France and Germany had called for direct talks with Putin.

The proposal came after US President Joe Biden held his own meeting with Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, last week.

However, EU leaders failed to reach an agreement on such a summit. In a statement, they said that “they will explore format and conditionalities of dialogue with Russia” but did not mention a summit.

The statement also called on EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell “to present options for additional restrictive measures, including sanctions” against Russia.

“We defined again under what conditions we are prepared to work and communicate more closely with Russia… There was no agreement today on an immediate leaders’ meeting,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after meeting EU leaders.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ Czech Republic has been named, along with the US, as an ‘Unfriendly State’ by Russia

What did Merkel and Macron say about a Putin summit?

Merkel said the 27-member bloc needed direct dialogue with Russia because “conflicts can best be solved if you also talk to each other.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said warmer ties with Moscow were “necessary for the stability of the European continent.”

“We cannot remain in a purely reactive logic with regards to Russia,” he said.

The bloc has not held a summit with the Russian leader since 2014 amid an ongoing rift over the annexation of Crimea

What is the state of EU-Russia relations?

European-Russian ties have also been strained over the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who is currently imprisoned in a penal colony.

But the suggestion of closer ties with Putin has already created splits in the EU and came as a surprise to some EU governments. Two senior diplomats told DW that they first learned of the plan from the media.

Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said there would be “difficulties” in seeking to build trust with the Russian government.

“The Kremlin understands power politics. The Kremlin does not understand free concessions as a sign of strength,” Karins told journalists.

The EU and Moscow have traded blows over the jailing of Alexei Navalny

Lithuania, another Baltic state, was also cool on the idea floated by Paris and Berlin.

“If without any positive changes in the behavior of Russia, we will start to engage, it will send very uncertain and bad signals to our partners,” the country’s president, Gitanas Nauseda, said.

“It seems to me like we try to engage a bear to keep a pot of honey safe,” he added.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he would boycott any direct EU meeting with Putin, citing the downing of the MH17 flight over Ukraine in July 2014.

Nearly 300 people died in the disaster, most of them Dutch citizens. A Dutch investigation blamed pro-Russian separatists for shooting down the plane.

EU to continue migration support for Turkey

Merkel also said EU leaders agreed to provide Turkey with around €3 billion ($3.6 billion) in financial aid to stem migration.

Turkey had agreed to keep migrants from reaching the EU in 2016 in exchange for financial aid from the bloc.

Turkey currently shelters 3.7 million migrants from the war in Syria.

Merkel said earlier in the week that the financial humanitarian aid given to Ankara should be shifted to socio-economic assistance, as some of the migrants in Turkey have been there for 10 years.

Hungary under fire over LGBTQ draft law

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government came under fire over legislation that banned LGBTQ content from being handed out in schools.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week branded the bill “a shame” that contradicts the fundamental values of the European Union and threatened to take Hungary to court.

Merkel said the EU leaders and Orban had a “very, very frank discussion.”

“We all made it very clear here what fundamental values we are pursuing” and the European Commission “will now continue to deal with the Hungarian law.”

Orban, however, remained unrepentant.

“This is not against homosexuality, any sexual interference. It’s not about homosexuals,” he said. “It’s about the right of the kids and the parents.”

Orban vowed not to withdraw the legislation.

“For me, Hungary has no place in the EU anymore,” Dutch Prime Minister Rutte said ahead of the meeting.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said the bill broke “a fundamental value of the European Union” while Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel called it “unacceptable.”

Leaders from 17 EU countries on Thursday signed a letter slamming “threats against fundamental rights, and in particular the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.”

The issue has been front and center of European politics this week after UEFA, Europe’s football governing body, rejected a plan by Munich to light up its stadium in rainbow colors for a Germany-Hungary match on Wednesday.

Orban had been set to attend, but he decided to skip the game that ended in a 2-2 draw and saw Hungary eliminated from the European Championship.

jf, wd/rt (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/eu-leaders-fail-to-agree-on-a-summit-with-vladimir-putin/a-58037408

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The European Union has approved the participation of NATO members the United States, Canada, and Norway in a project aimed at speeding up the movement of troops and military equipment around Europe.

The May 6 decision marks the first time the EU has opened up an initiative from its Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) pact, which aims to deepen defense ties, to outside partners.

The pact was agreed by EU leaders in December 2017 amid heightened tensions between the West and Moscow over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014 and has been backing separatists in eastern Ukraine in a war that has killed more than 13,000 people since April 2014.

The bloc has since earmarked 1.7 billion euros ($2 billion) from its joint budget until 2028 to improve so-called military mobility, something NATO deems as crucial in the event of a conflict with Russia.

Beyond border red tape, the smooth deployment of forces whether by land, sea, or air is also often hindered by ill-adapted infrastructure.

At their first in-person meeting in more than a year in Brussels, the 27 EU defense ministers discussed Russia’s recent military buildup in annexed Crimea and on the Ukrainian border.

“The debate reaffirmed the EU’s position that Russia must de-escalate and reduce tensions,” and that the full implementation of the Minsk agreements aimed at putting an end to the fighting in eastern Ukraine “is key to a lasting political solution,” according to a statement.

The ministers also gave the greenlight for the United States, Canada, and Norway to join the bloc’s military mobility project, led by the Netherlands.

The three countries’ “expertise will contribute to the project and, with it, to improving military mobility within and beyond the EU,” the bloc’s foreign policy chief and meeting chairman, Josep Borrell, said in a statement.

“It will make EU defense more efficient and contribute to strengthen our security.”

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer hailed the move as a “quantum leap in concrete cooperation when it comes to ensuring that troops can be deployed in Europe across national borders.”

“Talking about military mobility, making sure that troops can be moved across borders within Europe is a very important issue not only for the European Union but also for NATO,” she added.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who met with the EU ministers, also welcomed the move, and noted that “non-EU allies play an essential role in protecting and defending Europe.”

The United States and its NATO allies have enhanced their presence in the eastern part of the alliance, in part to help reassure Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland that they will be defended in case of any Russian aggression.

Canada is leading a NATO battlegroup stationed in Latvia, and non-EU member Norway is involved, too.

A reminder of the continued tensions in the region came on May 6 when Estonia filed a protest with Moscow a day after a Russian aircraft allegedly violated its airspace for the second time this year.

The military said an IL-96 plane belonging to Russia spent about one minute in Estonian airspace near the Baltic Sea island of Vaindloo in what the Foreign Ministry called “a serious incident.”

The crew did not present a flight plan and failed to maintain radio contact with Estonian Air Navigation Services, the military and officials said.

Moscow said it disputes Tallin’s characterization of the facts.

EU defense ministers also discussed on May 6 a project to set up a 5,000-strong military force that could be deployed quickly to a potential conflict zone. The plan has the backing of 14 member countries, including France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-eu-nato-allies-military-mobility-borrell-stoltenberg/31241378.html

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Bosnia risks “severe consequences” to its reputation if assistance is not urgently given to 1,700 people left without shelter for more than three weeks, the European Union’s foreign policy chief has warned.

Authorities in the non-EU country need to “quickly scale up their actions to address the grave humanitarian situation,” the EU’s Josep Borrell told the Serb member of Bosnia’s joint presidency, Milorad Dodik, in a phone call, Mr. Borrell’s spokesman said.

Those authorities should “take full responsibility, urgent action and do what it takes to provide immediate assistance and work on longer-term solutions,” Mr. Borrell told Mr. Dodik.

The blunt words reflected frustration over the slow and minimal action taken so far to help the migrants despite repeated urgings from Brussels and €3.5 million in extra aid for the emergency.

Most of the migrants are from Pakistan and Afghanistan and they include children.

Their original camp, located in the Una Sana area near the border with EU member Croatia, burned down on 23 December.

The Bosnian army has started to put around half the migrants in some 20 tents fitted with heating set up next to the burnt-out camp, with aid groups supplying clothes, blankets, and food.

The other half remain sleeping rough in a nearby forest, waiting for a solution.

Local authorities, however, are refusing to see the camp rebuilt and are resisting entreaties from the UN’s International Organization for Migration for an abandoned factory to be used.

The federal government is not forcing the issue.

The Serb part of the country, represented by Mr. Dodik, refuses to see any migrant camps on its territory, all of which are found in the Bosnian-Croat part.

In his call to Mr. Dodik, Mr. Borrell noted that the EU had “repeatedly urged” Bosnia’s authorities to “provide basic and secure living conditions to all the persons of concern still sleeping out in the cold in extreme conditions”.

He stressed the total €88m in EU aid for migration assistance the country has received, and called for “sustainable solutions, notably with the opening of centres more evenly distributed across the full territory of the country”.

“Failing to do so would have severe consequences for the reputation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Mr. Borrell said, according to his spokesman.

Source: AFP

Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2021/0111/1189065-bosnia/

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