Ukraine Briefly

March 03, 2023

Ukraine, Briefly

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This week, Russia and Ukraine clashed after Moscow accused a Ukrainian sabotage group of crossing the border into Russia’s Bryansk region, firing on civilians and in one village taking hostages, CNBC reported Thursday. Ukraine disputed the charges, accusing Russia of “deliberate provocation” while also saying the attack was carried out by anti-government Russian partisans. Meanwhile, Ukraine has dispatched troops to Bakhmut, showing the intensity of combat in a city that has become a crucible in the east of the country as Russian forces increasingly tighten their grip, according to the New York Times.

Also this week:

• Amid the military clashes, disputes over Russia’s war in Ukraine have dominated G20 negotiations in Delhi, with hosts India declaring that there will be no joint statement on the conflict, the BBC noted. According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the meeting was overshadowed by Russia’s “unprovoked and unjustified war.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of “blackmail and threats.” The two however did meet briefly, for the first time since the war broke out last year, USA Today reported.

• Meanwhile, the leaders of China and Belarus have pledged to strengthen their defense and security relationship, while expressing similar views on the war in Ukraine during a recent meeting in Beijing, CNN wrote. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko – a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin – supported China’s stance on finding a “political solution” to the conflict, which called for peace talks between the warring sides, but did not push for a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, drawing skepticism from Western leaders. Lukashenko’s visit came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he also wanted to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to discuss Beijing’s proposals for ending the conflict, NBC News noted.

• Russia’s economy has embraced China’s currency, the yuan, as a new alternative to Western financial networks and the US dollar, the Wall Street Journal explained. Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund, a war chest to sustain government spending pressured by battlefield costs in Ukraine, is storing its oil riches in Chinese yuan. Russian firms have borrowed in yuan, commonly known as renminbi, and households are stashing savings in it.

• Finland has started building a 124-mile fence along part of its border with Russia to increase security, the BBC reported. The Nordic country moved to construct the barrier in response to an increase in Russians attempting to cross the border to avoid conscription to fight in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Finnish lawmakers overwhelmingly approved legislation allowing the country to join NATO, strengthening the country’s chances of joining the transatlantic defensive alliance ahead of its Nordic neighbor Sweden, the Guardian added.

• A new law preventing the general public from accessing entries to Russia’s real estate register came into force this week, the Moscow Times reported. Critics cautioned that the legislation will make it more difficult for Russian investigative journalists to unravel the complicated ownership structures and holding companies employed by Russia’s oligarchs to conceal their wealth. At the same time, Putin has signed a law prohibiting government officials from using foreign-origin words in official documents, correspondence, or while conducting their duties, the Moscow Times wrote.

• Three Russian tanks captured by Ukrainian forces and sent to the Baltics for display last week are inflaming tensions after supporters of Russian troops began placing flowers on them, Bloomberg noted. A fistfight erupted in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius between two men after one placed a flower atop one of the seriously damaged T-72 tanks and the other attempted to remove it. The clashes have reignited historic ideological divisions in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania over the interpretation of the Soviet Union’s legacy. All three have minority Russian populations.

This story originally appeared in the March 03, 2023 newsletter, Beyond the Horizon.