Page 56 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine April 2025

56 Opinion
bne April 2025
emerged along the Russian border after 2015, as per reports by the mainstream American media. It will also insist on the de-Americanisation of Ukrainian security agencies, the SBU and the HUR, parts of which are all but run by the CIA, according to investigative reports by The Washington Post and New York Times.
This might be the toughest bargain of all for the West because the withdrawal of both the CIA and the MI6 from Ukraine will be the West’s most tangible defeat in its confrontation with Putin’s Russia over Ukraine.
Moscow will also likely insist on the decriminalisation of political forces representing Russian-speakers as well as on ending the ban on the formerly Moscow-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It is also hard to imagine Putin agreeing
to peace that doesn’t envisage the end of the culture war on Russian language and all vestiges of Russian culture currently under way in Ukraine.
But this is also something that will be fairly easy for Kyiv to agree with and get a sympathetic response from the public.
As the Ukrainian leadership very well understands, rather than harming Ukraine, ditching ethnonationalist policies is what will help make Ukraine genuinely democratic, inclusive and compatible with EU standards. Xenophobia and discrimination will make little sense once the conflict is properly over.
Will Ukraine and the West agree to all of that? Not immediately for sure. But what we saw over the last several months was them slowly backtracking on key issues with
Bosnia becomes new proxy for struggle between Russia and the West
Denitsa Koseva in Sofia
Bosnia & Herzegovina is facing its biggest crisis in 30 years with politicians in Republika Srpska, encouraged by Moscow, taking steps towards secession. Recent moves by Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik and his ruling SNSD party have started a potentially dangerous chain of reaction within the country, and local politicians do not rule out a new civil war breaking out.
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regards to the future settlement, starting with the de facto acceptance of Ukraine’s territorial losses.
Trump's administration may try and pressure Putin into accepting what he doesn’t want to accept. Whether that strategy will succeed depends on how Putin sees the prospect of Russia sustaining the war effort for another few years in the face of potentially increasing Western sanctions. All signals so far have indicated that Moscow is ready to engage in fighting for much longer than the West. Unlike the latter, it is genuinely seeing this war as existential.
But for Trump, pressuring Putin too much means getting invested in a project he is not invested in at the moment and the one which by all means looks doomed to failure, even putting aside the moral qualms associated with the idea of “fighting to the last Ukrainian”.
What we are seeing now is likely to be the beginning of a long negotiations process in which the performative aspect will be more prominent than any other. Western and Ukrainian leaders will need to produce a lot of “tough talk” while gradually backtracking on key issues and carefully selling these concessions to domestic audiences which were being sold delusional expectations over the last three years.
Some goodwill gestures by the Kremlin are not inconceivable since ultimately it wants to restore good relations with the West – on its terms. These terms, however, appear to be largely non-negotiable and Putin appears to be dead certain that time is on his side.
EUFOR announced a temporary increase in its forces to maintain stability in Bosnia. / EUFOR
Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Serbian peer Aleksandar Vucic openly support Dodik, and have accused the West of interfering with Bosnia’s internal affairs and acting against the rights and interests of its Serb population. Meanwhile, the Western international community has stepped up quickly to prevent a new war and de-escalate the situation.