Speeches of presidents of Ukraine, USA and Russia at the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York showed that Western World still hopes to avoid further isolation of Russian Federation. “Syrian card” played by Kremlin becomes subject of trade when Ukrainian question is raised. Informator.lg.ua tried to analyze what politicians said and make some conclusion regarding further development of events in Ukraine and on the Middle East.
Vladimir Putin
Tactical success of Kremlin at General Assembly is obvious, Russian managed to show to the world its own original view on the situation on the Middle East. Putin directly says that in Syrian crisis Russia supports Bashar Assad. President of Russia calls for Western countries and countries of the Middle East to get united in a fight against ISIS and says that the West is not effecting in solving Syrian conflict.
Assumptions of political experts that Russia is using Syria as a subject of trade for Ukraine were totally confirmed.
At the same time Putin uses “peacekeeping” rhetoric. Putin continues to position Russia as a peacekeeping country in Syrian conflict since 2013. This doesn’t make sense as Russia got reputation of aggressor-country.
Ukrainian delegation brought a flag from Illovaisk before Putin’s speech in General Assembly
Global community reacted to Putin’s promise not to use Russian troops for operation on the ground in Syria with optimism and that Russia will only help Assad regime with logistics and technical support.
Offering to create global coalition against ISIS following example of anti-Hitler coalition, Putin also let everybody know that he looks at Syrian leader Assad as the major partner to solve problems in the region. In this question Russia is not going to get support from USA and other Western countries that constantly remind to the workd that Assad killed hundreds of thousands of Sunnis.
Talking about Ukraine Putin use same rhetoric: an armed coup inspired from the outside, civil war, the need for a diplomatic solution of the conflict… Obviously Kremlin want to continue political game within “Minsk agreements”.
In general, there was nothing special in Putin’s speech. There was surprising statement about creation of coordination information center regarding exchange of intelligence data in order to synchronize forces to fight against IS terrorists. It is planned that the center created by Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraqi in Bagdad will be coordinated by officers of those countries and they will be rotating every three months.
Russian political expert Andrey Piontkovskiy thinks that this situation can divide “anti-putting supporters of Ukraine” on the global level. He thinks that tactical victory of Putin is obvious, he managed to distract attention inside his country from the war in Ukraine in the direction to the Middle East where he basically creates “Shiite coalition”
Barack Obama
There were no surprises in 40 minutes speech of Barack Obama at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Talking about global problems that humanity faces, 44th president of the USA mentions “countries that violate international law and think that the order is set by force”, he said that such approach in unacceptable. According to American President regress of democracy and limitation of civic societies (using the fight against chaos and terrorism as excuse) would be inappropriate. “Following such logic we should support such tyrants as Bashar al-Assad who bombs innocent men, women and children, saying that it’s going to be worse otherwise”. According to Obama that is a dead end. The President of the USA expressed his position that after the bloodshed in Syria since 2011 Bashar Assad won’t be able to keep status quo. This means that “architecture” of hypothetical coalition offered by Kremlin is unacceptable for the USA.
Speech-writers of the President of USA made a good job and veiled accusations in his speech can be addressed both to Kremlin and to Assad.
“Indeed, I believe that in today’s world, the measure of strength is no longer defined by the control of territory. Lasting prosperity does not come solely from the ability to access and extract raw materials. The strength of nations depends on the success of their people — their knowledge, their innovation, their imagination, their creativity, their drive, their opportunity — and that, in turn, depends upon individual rights and good governance and personal security. Internal repression and foreign aggression are both symptoms of the failure to provide this foundation. A politics and solidarity that depend on demonizing others, that draws on religious sectarianism or narrow tribalism or jingoism may at times look like strength in the moment, but over time its weakness will be exposed” said the President of the USA.
It’s important that Russian aggression against Ukraine Obama named exactly like that – Russian aggression, mentioning annexed Crimea and the war in Donbass.
During the meeting of Obama and Putin they discussed Syria and Ukraine for 1 hour and a half. Based of press-conferences of the leaders of the states that followed the meeting there were no substantial results and disagreements remained unresolved and no compromises were achieved.
Petro Poroshenko
There were also no surprises in Petro Poroshenko’s speech as well.
President of Ukraine at the General Assembly of the United Nations talked about Russian aggression in Donbas, about destruction of infrastructure and economic potential, threat of man-made disasters and social exclusion, he told about problems with social help for 1.5 mln of internally displaced people.
Talking about plans regarding development and reforms in Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said “Stable development is impossible when civilian people get killed. It is impossible where aggressive ideology of suppressing one nation by another nation exists, when basic rights and freedoms are violated”
Summary
Obviously Kremlin managed to achieve certain political success. Bashar Assad who could repeat the destiny of Muammar Gaddafi now again becomes a leader who is on the front line fighting against ISIS and becomes global level politician. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain in his speech said that others should negotiate and coordinate with him. Russian Federation manages to keep the image of a peacemaker that tries to solve “Syria and Ukrainian” crisis.
Since USA and Europe are switching attention to the Middle East, the support of Ukraine in resistance to Russian aggression can gradually to come to nothing.
At the same time during the meeting of Barack Obama and Petro Poroshenko American President assured his Ukrainian colleague that USA will continue to support our country in its fight to protect territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The leader of the group “Informational resistance” the Deputy of the Parliament Dmitry Tymchuk and some other political experts of Russian and Ukraine that Russia is trying to force Ukraine to follow its scenario of solving the problems of Donbass. “Now they will play political card in the attempt to legalize LPR-DPR using Minsk Agreements as a cover. Pseudo-elections in Lugansk and Donetsk with tanks and “Grad” on the front line is a good combination to blackmail Kiev. The question is if Putin will be successful to return Donbass to Ukraine on his conditions, and if that anti-Ukrainian plans fails the war will be resumed”.
Political expert Andrey Piontkovskiy thinks that during “Normandy Four” negotiations Putin can take down the question of pseudo-elections in Donbass. In case he makes his minions from LPR-DPR to give up on the idea of elections, Angela Merkel and François Hollande will have to try to ask Petro Poroshenko for something in return. The contact group in Minsk on September 30 managed to make agreement regarding withdrawal of weapon less than 100 mm 15 km away from the contact line.
In the next few days it will be possible to judge about tendencies after the meeting of “Normandy Four” at the beginning of October.
Aleksey Chernov Informator.lg.ua