Sergey Cheban: Moscow and Washington Will Try to Agree on Moldova and Ukraine

The RTA expert suggests that the US and Russia have not found significant benefits from the military confrontation. In his opinion, it is easier for both countries to take a ‘time out’ to solve their own problems than to warm up the geopolitical confrontation Sergey Cheban, RTA U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton is going to Moldova. Today, the high-ranking official arrived in Kyiv, where he was warmly welcomed. Interestingly, as part of his Eastern European tour Bolton will visit Minsk, high officials from the United States have not visited Belarus for a long time. Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine is a traditional region of geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the conditionally collective West: triumvirate of the United States, NATO and the European Union. Over the past thirty years, two of these countries have been strongly rocked: first Moldova during the armed conflict in Transdniestria, two decades later its fate was repeated by Ukraine with the Crimea and Donbas. Both conflicts remain a ‘headache’ of Moscow and Brussels, without losing relevance for Washington’s military and strategic interests. It is logical to assume that the Eastern European tour of hawk Bolton is a prologue before another scene of the long-playing process of dividing this region into spheres of influence of Russia and NATO. This theory fits perfectly into the circumstances and the recent visit of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Moldova. However, the denominator of Bolton’s trip may be quite different: the main motive of the current tactical actions of Moscow and Washington can be a certain ‘freezing’ of tension on terms understandable for both sides. Over the past years, experts in the field of geopolitics have repeatedly noted that the confrontation between the United States and Russia in Europe and Syria has no positive outcome and even understandable goals for both sides. The struggle for regional influence between the two countries looked more like a tribute to the established logic and developed almost of despair – the two capitals in recent years have not invented anything better than to continue clear and meaningless logic of mutual containment. In the end, the situation predictably reached an impasse, which may be followed by either a direct clash or the beginning of negotiations. No one voted for the war, thank God. They decided to get out of the impasse through dialogue. As you know, the best way to do this is to find common interests and practical reasons for cooperation. In this sense, the increased attention of the EU, the US and Russia to Moldova clearly showed that the major players came to grips with topics that could unite and give room for maneuver. Ridding a small, poor and oppressed country of the hegemony of the autocratic oligarch is an ideal goal that can justify the union of anyone with anyone. Therefore, it is not surprising that it began the stage of joint ‘cooling’ of Eastern Europe. In all fairness, it probably began with Ukraine – but in this direction, Moscow for obvious reasons exercised ‘armed’ skepticism towards Zelensky’s victory, in order to maintain the consistency of its foreign policy towards Ukraine. Nevertheless, advances in the issue of prisoner exchange and talk about the upcoming meeting between Putin and Zelensky seem to hint that the situation is gradually changing, as well as the fact that Ukraine ignored Sergei Shoigu’s visit to Transdniestria, although in past years the unrecognized republic was considered almost a base area of the ‘second front’ against Ukraine. By the way, the disposal of a huge amount of obsolete Soviet ammunition placed in Cobasna depots near the borders of Ukraine is also quite a unifying goal, which, moreover, has long been persistently pursued by the US and the EU. Therefore, it will be surprising, but quite logical, if Bolton supports Russian initiatives during his visit to Moldova. How it will actually be is another question, because now the parties need to strenuously demonstrate a good attitude. All the key players in Europe clearly need a pause. Elections in the US are approaching, Europe has not found sustainable ways to cope with its systemic problems, Russia needs to restart the economy. In the old days, a powerful threat on the outer perimeter could distract from internal problems: but all this was recently in Ukraine and with the development of the information society works worse and worse. This gets increasingly difficult to electrify the general public with the threat from abroad, and internal problems are not solved by themselves. New solutions must be found, which means that Russia and the United States will try to agree on Moldova and Ukraine. That, however, does not mean any global ‘warming’ – experience shows that Moscow and Washington find it hard to secure sustainable ceasefire.