Comment by Riaz Haq on February 24, 2022 at 9:34pm

Ukraine, Nuclear Weapons, and Security Assurances at a Glance | Arms Control Association


https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Ukraine-Nuclear-Weapons


In late April 1993, 162 Ukrainian politicians signed a statement to add 13 preconditions for ratification of START, frustrating the ratification process. The preconditions required security assurances from Russia and the United States, foreign aid for dismantlement, and compensation for the nuclear material. Additionally, they stated that Ukraine would dismantle only 36 percent of its delivery vehicles and 42 percent of its warheads, leaving the rest under Ukrainian control. Russia and the United States criticized these demands, but Ukraine did not budge. In May 1993, the United States said that if Ukraine were to ratify START, Washington would provide more financial assistance. This began subsequent discussions between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States over the future of Ukrainian denuclearization.

1993 Massandra Accords

Ukrainian and Russian officials reached a set of agreements, including protocols on nuclear weapons dismantlement, procedure, and terms of compensation. However, the two sides could not agree on the final document, and the summit ultimately failed.

1994 Trilateral Statement

The Massandra Accords set the stage for the ultimately successful trilateral talks. As the United States mediated between Russia and Ukraine, the three countries signed the Trilateral Statement on January 14, 1994. Ukraine committed to full disarmament, including strategic weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia. Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear warheads to Russia and accepted U.S. assistance in dismantling missiles, bombers, and nuclear infrastructure. Ukraine’s warheads would be dismantled in Russia, and Ukraine would receive compensation for the commercial value of the highly enriched uranium. Ukraine ratified START on February 3, 1994, repealing its earlier preconditions, but it would not accede to the NPT without further security assurances.

1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances

To solidify security commitments to Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances on December 5, 1994. A political agreement in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Accords, the memorandum included security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence. The countries promised to respect the sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine. Parallel memorandums were signed for Belarus and Kazakhstan as well. In response, Ukraine officially acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state on December 5, 1994. That move met the final condition for ratification of START, and on the same day, the five START states-parties exchanged instruments of ratification, bringing the treaty into force.

2009 Joint Declaration by Russia and the United States

Russia and the United States released a joint statement in 2009 confirming that the security assurances made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum would still be valid after START expired in 2009.

2014 Russian Annexation of Crimea

Following months of political unrest and the abrupt departure of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russian troops entered the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine in March 2014. On March 18, over the protests of the acting government in Kiev, the UN Security Council, and Western governments, Russia declared the annexation of Crimea. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine called the action a blatant violation of the security assurances in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. However, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, “the security assurances were given to the legitimate government of Ukraine but not to the forces that came to power following the coup d'etat.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 25, 2022 at 12:00pm

Could #SWIFT be used to sanction #Russia? Swift as a weapon could erode the #dollar-dominated global financial system, including by fostering alternatives to Swift being developed by Russia and the world’s second largest economy, #China. #Trade https://www.wsj.com/articles/swift-banking-system-sanctions-biden-1... via @WSJ


Russia’s assault on Ukraine triggered a surge of calls for Western allies to completely sever Russia from the global financial system by disconnecting it from the so-called Swift global payment system. Fear in places like the U.S. and Germany of potential collateral damage have put the idea on hold for now.

What is Swift?
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, is the financial-messaging infrastructure that links the world’s banks. The Belgium-based system is run by its member banks and handles millions of daily payment instructions across more than 200 countries and territories and 11,000 financial institutions. Iran and North Korea are cut off from it.

Why is Swift important for countries, including Russia?
Cross-border financing is critical to every part of the economy, including trade, foreign investment, remittances and the central bank’s management of the economy. Disconnecting a country, in this case Russia, from Swift would hit all of that.

Who is advocating for such a move?
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lobbied other Group of Seven members to flip the switch. Other proponents include countries along the European Union’s border with Russia and some members of Congress, including California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The move, they argue, would help cripple Russia’s economy in a way that more targeted sanctions can’t.

Why are other countries resisting it?
Critics say there could be economic blowback, not just in Europe, which has deep trade ties and relies heavily on Russia’s natural gas exports, but also the rest of the world. Some former U.S. officials say the move could severely hurt Russia’s economy, but also harm Western business interests such as the major oil companies. President Biden, while ruling it out for now, said the option isn’t off the table completely.

At an estimated $1.7 trillion last year, Russia’s gross domestic product makes it the 12th largest economy in the world. Even if the global economy wasn’t hobbled by a three-year pandemic, rising inflation, supply chain disruptions and escalating East-West political tensions, losing 2% of global GDP and one of the world’s top oil exporters would inflict severe damage to it.

Additionally, using Swift as a weapon could erode the dollar-dominated global financial system, including by fostering alternatives to Swift being developed by Russia and the world’s second largest economy, China. That could undermine Western power, especially the diplomatic leverage that sanctions offer.

What have Western nations done instead?
Besides halting a new natural gas pipeline and hurting Russia’s ability to raise debt, Western sanctions so far have blacklisted many of Russia’s biggest banks, affecting the majority of the country’s banking sectors assets. Those sanctions ban transactions with the targeted institutions, cutting off their access to U.S. dollars and financing.

Why would cutting Swift off be different?
President Biden said that with Thursday’s sanctions, allied efforts essentially amount to the same things as cutting Russia off from Swift. But there are differences.

Swift is a bludgeon in the economic warcraft arsenal compared with targeted sanctions that provide precision and diplomatic flexibility for policy makers.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 25, 2022 at 12:17pm

China’s Cross-Border International Payments System could give Russia a lifeline and accelerate de-dollarization
By DAVID P GOLDMAN


https://asiatimes.com/2022/02/chinas-swift-alternative-may-undercut...


Washington’s new sanctions against Russia were no match for President Biden’s rhetoric, leaving out the most obvious measure that the United States might take to hurt Moscow, namely exclusion from the SWIFT international payments system.


Banks conduct virtually all hard-currency transactions via SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. But a new Chinese alternative might allow Russia to conduct most of its trade in yuan rather than dollars.

China’s Cross-Border International Payments System (CIPS), founded in 2015, is still under development and includes only 80 foreign banks. But there is no reason in principle that CIPS can’t substitute for SWIFT. And if Russia successfully shifts its trade payments out of the dollar system, the blow to American prestige and power would be enormous.

De-dollarization of trade is under debate in Western Europe. Germany’s Manager Magazine wrote on February 14, “Exclusion from the international payment system SWIFT is considered the sharpest sword that the West could wield as an economic sanction against Russia.

“However, it is a double-edged sword: the economic consequences would not only be serious in Russia, but also in Western Europe. In addition, the decoupling of Russia and China from the US dollar would be accelerated. Both countries are already working on competing payment systems.”

Russia also has developed an interbank messaging system, which now covers about 20% of domestic financial payments.

China’s yuan has advantages and disadvantages as a dollar substitute. It has gained about 8% against the US dollar since the Covid recession began in early 2020.

China’s consumer inflation rate stands around 1% year-on-year vs. 7.5% in the US, and the yuan to some extent has acted as a hedge against dollar inflation, as I wrote on February 17.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 25, 2022 at 12:24pm

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/...


Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (“I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests; but neither Bush nor Gorbachev at that point (or for that matter, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl) expected so soon the collapse of East Germany or the speed of German unification.[2]

The first concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher opened the bidding with a major public speech at Tutzing, in Bavaria, on German unification. The U.S. Embassy in Bonn (see Document 1) informed Washington that Genscher made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.’” The Bonn cable also noted Genscher’s proposal to leave the East German territory out of NATO military structures even in a unified Germany in NATO.[3]

This latter idea of special status for the GDR territory was codified in the final German unification treaty signed on September 12, 1990, by the Two-Plus-Four foreign ministers (see Document 25). The former idea about “closer to the Soviet borders” is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) offering assurances throughout 1990 and into 1991 about protecting Soviet security interests and including the USSR in new European security structures. The two issues were related but not the same. Subsequent analysis sometimes conflated the two and argued that the discussion did not involve all of Europe. The documents published below show clearly that it did.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 25, 2022 at 12:25pm

Dr. Taimur Rahman
@Taimur_Laal
·
9h
Interestingly, 14 countries have joined NATO since 1997. Who is this alliance against? Obviously it is against Russia.

Ironically there was a time when Russia wanted to be part of NATO.


https://twitter.com/Taimur_Laal/status/1497157622147035136?s=20&...

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 25, 2022 at 4:53pm

Late American South Asia expert Stephen Cohen of Washington's Brookings Institution
told his audience: "Not a few Indian generals and strategists have told me that if only America would strip Pakistan of its nuclear weapons then the Indian army could destroy the Pakistan army and the whole thing would be over."

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/04/indias-hostility-toward-pakistan.html

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 1, 2022 at 7:20am

PIA Repatriation Flights Head To #Poland Amid #Evacuation Efforts. The first flight left on Sunday for Warsaw, where it will pick up those #Pakistanis in #Ukraine who successfully reached the #Polish border. https://simpleflying.com/pia-poland-ukraine/

In total, officials estimate that 500-600 Pakistanis remain to be flown out of the country, which means it could take a few more flights before everyone is safely moved out of border countries. We can expect more details as groups slowly make their way through war-torn Ukraine in the coming days.

-------------------

Pakistan International Airlines is undertaking two evacuation flights to bring home citizens affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine. The first flight left on Sunday for Warsaw, where it will pick up those who successfully reached the Polish border. The flights come as countries globally step up efforts to evacuate citizens from the heart of the crisis.

Finalized
As reported by Tribune, PIA is flying two emergency flights out of Poland to rescue the hundreds of Pakistani students and others stuck in the country after the war broke out. The airline will deploy its largest plane, the Boeing 777, to pick up those who can be evacuated currently. Ukraine's airspace has been closed since February 24th, making any flights in and over the country impossible for the near future

To get people out of Ukraine, countries have been looking for alternate routes to reach the border countries of Poland and Romania and then sending in flights. Warsaw, Bucharest, and more cities have all played hosts to special flights this week to help thousands return safely. However, the task is not so simple.

PIA spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez added the details of coordinating this evacuation amid a war, saying,

"The preparations have been made to send two flights to Poland from Pakistan on Sunday. The Pakistani embassy in Ukraine is not only contacting all those Pakistanis who want to return to the country, but also providing them all-out information in this regard. The Pakistani embassy in Ternopil will transfer all the students to Poland by land route. PIA's Boeing 777 plane will then repatriate the students from Poland."

---------------

Stepping up
PIA is one of the dozens of airlines facing the consequences of Russia's invasion. For example, Air India has flown several missions to Bucharest and Budapest, and more are planned in the coming days to rescue citizens. However, in addition to evacuation, the political fallout of the war has altered the flight paths of several carriers.

Economic sanctions by the UK meant that British airlines had lost access to Russian airspace, creating longer, more costly flights for Asia-bound routes. Some cargo services have even been axed due to the changes. The EU took similar actions when it banned Russian carriers from its airspace, which is almost likely to result in a reciprocal ban. The airspace sanctions are some of the harshest seen since the Cold War and could reshape flight paths for a while.

For now, the coming days will see tense negotiations to protect foreign nationals as the war continues to rage in Ukraine.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 1, 2022 at 7:34am

#Indian student killed in #Ukraine amid criticism over evacuation. Medical student from southern state of #Karnataka killed by shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of #Kharkiv, India’s foreign ministry says https://aje.io/qepcrb via @AJEnglish


An Indian student has been killed in shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, India’s foreign ministry says, as criticism over New Delhi’s evacuation of students from the war-torn country mounts.

“Foreign Secretary is calling in Ambassadors of Russia and Ukraine to reiterate our demand for urgent safe passage for Indian nationals who are still in Kharkiv and cities in other conflict zones,” ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi posted on Twitter on Tuesday.


Russian forces are firing artillery and laying siege to Kharkiv and other major cities, a Ukrainian official said, as the invasion of the former Soviet republic entered its sixth day.

Indian media reports said the student, identified as Naveen Shekharappa, belonged to the southern state of Karnataka’s Haveri district and studied medicine in Ukraine.

The student died while he was trying to find his way out of Kharkiv, his roommate told India’s NDTV network.

“He lived near the governor’s house and had been standing in the queue for food. Suddenly there was an air strike that blew up the governor’s house and he was killed,” Pooja Praharaj, a student coordinator in Kharkiv, told NDTV.

A Ukrainian woman picked up his phone, according to the student coordinator. “Speaking from his phone, she said the owner of this phone is being taken to the morgue,” Praharaj said.

Indians make up about a quarter of the 76,000 foreign students in Ukraine, by far the largest number, according to Ukrainian government data.

New Delhi has evacuated about 4,000 Indians in the last month, but some 16,000 remain trapped, according to the latest data from India’s foreign ministry.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Indian embassy in Ukraine also issued an advisory, asking the Indian students to “leave Kyiv urgently”.

The Indian government has dispatched four federal ministers to Ukraine’s neighbouring countries to assist in the rescue efforts.

‘Screaming in terror’
But many stranded students in Ukraine have criticised the Indian government’s rescue efforts as they released a slew of videos on social media highlighting their plight.

According to Indian media, some Indian students are being prevented from crossing into neighbouring countries, with border guards reportedly refusing to let them pass and demanding money.

“I was standing near the Ukrainian border, awaiting my turn to enter Romania when I saw a few guards point guns at Indian students and start abusing them in their language,” the Times of India quoted one student as saying.

“Students, who were already scared, started screaming in terror.”


“(We) have been asked to reach the western border, which is impossible for us because the connecting bridges have been blown up due to bombardment… but we are not getting any kind of help in Ukraine,” he said.

Aruj Raj, a student in Kharkiv, told the newspaper that he has been in a hostel bunker with 400 other Indian students since Thursday.

“There is so much bombing happening outside. We can see street fighting through our windows. The city is still under curfew. It is impossible for us to step outside. We hardly have anything left to eat or drink,” he said.

India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday slammed the government for not coming up with “a strategic plan for safe evacuation” of Indian students in Ukraine.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 3, 2022 at 10:00pm

Opinion | Ukraine news coverage exposes racist biases in Western media - The Washington Post


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/28/ukraine-coverage...


By H.A. Hellyer
February 28, 2022 at 12:42 p.m. EST

H.A. Hellyer, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace scholar, is a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and Cambridge University.


“This double standard is so evident in how we as Westerners engage in intl relations…we dehumanize non-White populations, diminishing their importance, and that leads to one thing: the degrading of their right to live in dignity.”

------------------


“This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades,” Charlie D’Agata, a CBS correspondent in Kyiv, told his colleagues back in the studio. “You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”

Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine has generated an inspiring wave of solidarity around the world, but for many — especially non-White observers — it has been impossible to tune out the racist biases in Western media and politics.

D’Agata’s comments generated a swift backlash — and he was quick to apologize — but he was hardly the only one. A commentator on a French news program said, “We’re not talking about Syrians fleeing bombs of the Syrian regime backed by Putin; we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” On the BBC, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine declared, “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair ... being killed every day.” Even an Al Jazeera anchor said, “These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East,” while an ITV News reporter said, “Now the unthinkable has happened to them, and this is not a developing, Third World nation; this is Europe.”

British pundit Daniel Hannan joined the chorus in the Telegraph. “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” he wrote.

The implication for anyone reading or watching — particularly anyone with ties to a nation that has also seen foreign intervention, conflict, sanctions and mass migration — is clear: It’s much worse when White Europeans suffer than when it’s Arabs or other non-White people. Yemenis, Iraqis, Nigerians, Libyans, Afghans, Palestinians, Syrians, Hondurans — well, they are used to it.

The insults went beyond media coverage. A French politician said Ukrainian refugees represent “high-quality immigration.” The Bulgarian prime minister said Ukrainian refugees are “intelligent, they are educated. ... This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.”

It’s as if, in our anger and horror at the scenes of Russia’s aggression, we are incapable of recognizing a simple fact: We’ve seen this before.

A Vanity Fair special correspondent denied precisely that in a tweet: “This is arguably the first war we’ve seen (actually seen in real-time) take place in the age of social media, and all of these heart-wrenching images make Russia look utterly terrible.”

The tweet was erased — like the experiences of many who have documented the horrors of war in recent decades on social media and beyond.

Putin’s military also intervened ferociously in Syria, backing a murderous regime. That war unleashed a level of mass death, suffering, destruction and displacement not yet seen in Ukraine — but the West’s response was far less empathetic. The same can be said of the U.S. invasions and military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen; the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 6, 2022 at 9:09pm

#Modi turns the trauma of #Indian students fleeing #Ukraine into a campaign prop.“Ye Putin hai, ghar mein ghuske maarega” (“This is Putin, it is his principle to take the attack home”) referring to #Modi's 2019 airstrikes in #Balakot, #Pakistan. #Russia https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/06/indian-students-...

But it’s no secret that Putin and Modi are also kindred spirits. The two authoritarian leaders have met more than a dozen times since 2014. The two talk of blood and country and demand blind loyalty for their ultranationalist projects.
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Two Indian students have already died in Ukraine. As of Friday, there were reports of about 700 students trapped in Sumy, near the border with Russia, and some 300 in the heavily bombed city of Kharkiv.

But instead of showing compassion for these students, right-wing supporters of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have found ways to blame the victims instead of Vladimir Putin, India’s biggest provider of weapons and a close Modi ally.

Snide commenters asked why the students didn’t stay in their home countries. A ruling party minister felt the need to claim that the majority of students abroad had failed qualifier exams in India. The bereaved father of one of the victims was forced to justify the family’s decision while still waiting for his son’s remains: He simply could not afford the expensive fees charged by medical colleges in India.

On the morning Russia invaded Ukraine, many widely watched Indian news channels couldn’t help presenting Putin as a decisive and capable strongman. One graphic read, “Ye Putin hai, ghar mein ghuske maarega” (“This is Putin, it is his principle to take the attack home”) — a phrase adapted from a statement by Modi when he authorized airstrikes in Pakistan in 2019.

The mood among nationalists helps explain why India has not forcefully condemned Putin. On Wednesday, India abstained on a U.N. General Assembly resolution that strongly deplored Russia’s aggression, along with China and Pakistan.

It’s clear that India is caught in a tough balancing act, where it needs to be seen by the United States as sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause while not disturbing the relationship with Russia.

As China and Pakistan strengthen their strategic ties, Modi has been more reliant on Putin. Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated since the 2019 attack against Indian paramilitary soldiers in Kashmir and the subsequent airstrikes by India. China and India, on the other hand, have been involved in border clashes over territory in the Himalayas.

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As messages flooded Instagram, WhatsApp and other platforms from desperate Indians hunkered in shelters and basements in Ukraine, the prime minister kept campaigning for a high-stakes election in Uttar Pradesh, using the trauma and misery of the students as a political prop.

Modi claimed that the evacuation effort was only possible thanks to India’s new “rising power” status. (A foreign ministry spokesman told reporters Friday that more than 10,000 Indian nationals have already been flown back). The crowds cheered as a member of parliament claimed “everyone is pleading” for Modi to stop the war, saying: “He is regarded as a big world leader. It is a matter of pride.” On social media, Modi supporters spread fake news claiming Putin had stopped the war for six hours in response to Modi’s influence.

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