MOSCOW AND WASHINGTON WILL TRY TO AGREE ON MOLDOVA AND UKRAINE - EXPERT

Expert Sergey Cheban of the Regional Trends Analytics portal commented on the upcoming visit of U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton to Moldova and Ukraine.

He maintains that 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. 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”, the expert maintains.

According to him, 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.

“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”, Cheban maintains.

He supposes that 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”, the expert maintains.