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Celerity

(43,682 posts) Sat Mar 18, 2023, 10:50 AM Mar 2023

Moldova first domino in a Russian plan for escalation?

Events in Georgia represent a setback for Russia’s meddling in the post-Soviet neighbourhood. But they are no sign it will end.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/moldova-first-domino-in-a-russian-plan-for-escalation

Refugees from eastern Ukraine seeking to cross the border into Moldova the day after the invasion began—the Kremlin’s designs on the country are not, though, humanitarian

One of the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine is that the Kremlin has lost a lot of its influence in former Soviet countries. This creates opportunities to limit Moscow’s ability to leverage its once dominant role to further its war aims. However, it also means that Russia is likely to raise the stakes and try to escalate tensions and confrontation across the region. For the past several weeks, Moldova has been at the centre of such efforts by the Kremlin. And this may just be an indication of how Russia envisages the next stage of its confrontation with the west.

Even before the start of the war in Ukraine, there were signs of the countries of central Asia beginning to assert their individual and collective interests more strongly, a trend which has accelerated since February 2022. Notably, as China’s role in the region has grown, partly as a result of the void created by Russia, the United States has rekindled its relationships with key partners in central Asia, especially Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in yet another sign of Russia’s diminishing stature.

In the south Caucasus, Turkey has challenged Russia’s erstwhile dominance of the region. Ankara has openly backed Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenia (a Russian client) over Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkish control over key pipeline infrastructure, such as the trans-Anatolian gas pipeline which connects Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz region with the European trans-Adriatic pipeline at the Greek-Turkish border, provides a critical alternative to oil and gas—from Russia or transiting through Russia.

At the same time, the European Union has played a more proactive role as a mediator in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is much to the detriment of Moscow, which used to be the key power broker in this conflict. The limits of Russian influence became obvious recently in Georgia. The government there, after three days of increasingly violent protests, had to withdraw a bill in parliament that would have severely restricted civil and political liberties in ways eerily reminiscent of Russia’s ‘foreign agents’ law.

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