Diplomacy & Crisis News

Despite setbacks and challenges, Sudan continues its transition towards democracy, the head of the UN special political mission in the country told the Security Council on Tuesday.

More than 5.7 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, but only 2% of them in Africa, said World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday. 

The return of humanitarian flights to Kabul since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is a turning point in the crisis, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. 

Sans grands égards pour les peuples autochtones ni pour un environnement fragile, l'Union soviétique a très tôt exploité les ressources énergétiques et minières au-delà du cercle polaire en déplaçant une importante main-d'œuvre forcée ou pionnière. Les cités arctiques russes sont-elles amenées à disparaître (...) / Russie, URSS, Énergie, Histoire, Immigrés, Industrie, Intégration sociale, Mutation, Prison, Travail, Ville, Matières premières, Répression, Arctique, Pollution, Gaz naturel - 2016/07

By Stanislav Aseyev and Andreas Umland

One of the most brutal places of incarceration in the occupied territories of Eastern Ukraine – the so-called “Donetsk” and “Lugansk Peoples Republics” known by their Russian acronyms DNR/LNR – is the secret Izoliatsiia (Isolation) prison in the city of Donets’k. Since 2018, Izoliatsiia has become widely known in mass media and especially notorious for its cruelty. Among others, Stanislav Aseyev, who was held in the prison for 28 months, has published widely on Izoliatsiia.

According to Aseyev’s first-hand observations in Izoliatsiia, more than a hundred civilians went through the de facto concentration camp, in 2018-2019. Most of the captives in the Izoliatsiia prison experienced torture by electric shocks, beating, psychological torture, mock executions as well as rape. Many were forced to do hard physical labor.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [OHCHR] Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 November 2019 to 15 February 2020 (pp. 38-42) collected extensive witness testimonies on, among others, the Izoliatsiia torture prison:

“One detainee told OHCHR that his cellmates told him they had been ordered by the ‘Izoliatsiia’ guards ‘to make him talk’, and therefore forced him to march in place all night long in the cell, saying ‘If you do not do it, they will hurt all of us’. Detainees told OHCHR that in ‘Izoliatsiia’, ‘press cells’ were set up, where detainees were intimidated or beaten by cellmates to make them confess. One detainee was threatened that he would be forced to perform oral sex on other detainees in a ‘press cell’ if he did not confess. […] In addition to the beatings during interrogations, ‘Izoliatsiia’ detainees told OHCHR that personnel and other detainees cooperating with the ‘administration’ would beat them to coerce them to confess or to punish them for their alleged pro-Ukraine views or for allegedly disobeying the rules or orders. One detainee was regularly beaten for a year while in ‘Izoliatsiia’ as punishment for his pro-Ukraine views. Guards stepped on his toes and used a baton to hit him on his heels and legs causing him severe pain. Another detainee said he was beaten daily to make him confess and needed help to stand or use the toilet. […] In ‘Izoliatsiia’, a separate room with a table and relevant equipment was used to administer electric shocks. For example, one detainee was tied to the table, hand cuffed and hooded. Perpetrators attached one electrode to his genitalia and inserted a metal tube with a second electrode into his anus. He was subjected to painful electric shocks for several minutes, during which he lost consciousness several times. When he screamed, they put a cloth into his mouth. Another detainee told OHCHR that he was put on the table, hooded and with his arms and legs tied. Perpetrators attached electric wires to his feet and poured water on them. Some detainees held in ‘Izoliatsiia’ could not prevent themselves from urinating and defecating during electrocution. […A]nother detainee told OHCHR that […h]is genitalia was also repeatedly hit with a metal rod. As a result of this torture and sexual violence, the skin on his genitalia turned black and peeled off over several weeks. After refusing to confess to espionage, one detainee was put in a cell where one of the cellmates took off his pants and attempted to force the victim to engage in oral sex. Another detainee said that he witnessed the head of the ‘Izoliatsiia’ detention facility come to the cell and order detainees to engage in oral sex. One detainee told OHCHR that while in ‘Izoliatsiia’, he heard guards scream at female detainees on their way to the shower: ‘Go shave your [vaginas]. You are about to go upstairs to work it off.’ […] Several detainees reported that in ‘Izoliatsiia’, a health professional was present during their interrogations and torture. The man revived those who lost consciousness, and guided the perpetrators about how to torture to inflict maximum pain without causing death. He also examined detainees before the torture and asked about their medical conditions; measured their blood pressure or pulse; and gave injections. He told one detainee during torture: ‘We can kill you anytime we want.’”

Oddly, not only pro-Ukrainian and accidental civilians, but also numerous former so-called “insurgents” (opolchentsy) – i.e. previous DNR/LNR volunteer fighters or mercenaries from both Ukraine and Russia – have been held in Izoliatsiia and other detention facilities. During his more than two years at Izoliatsiia, Aseyev personally met and talked to:

1. 1. Yurii Tchaikovskii – a Colonel of the DNR’s so-called “5th Brigade,”
   2. Andrei Bogomaz – a Major General of the DNR’s so-called “Ministry of Emergency Situations,”
   3. Vitalii Ivanienko – a Lieutenant Colonel of the DNR’s so-called “Vitiaz’ Battalion,”
   4. Andrei Ibragimov – a Russian citizen and Major of the LNR’s so-called “4th Brigade,”
   5. Evgenii Tverdovskii – a Russian citizen and Lieutenant of the Russian Federation’s navy,
   6. Sergei Stavnichnii – a Lieutenant Colonel of the LNR’s so-called “4th LNR,”
   7. Aleksei Sidorov – a Captain of the DNR’s so-called “Legion Battalion,”
   8. Aleksandr Trudnenko – a Russian citizen and Senior Lieutenant of the DNR’s so-called “Vitiaz’ Battalion,”
   9. Denis Kustov – a Russian citizen and member of the DNR’s Radio-Electronic Intelligence Battalion,
   10. Aleksandr Shestakov – a Russian citizen accused of drug trafficking.

There were additional pro-Russian Ukrainian or Russian inmates during Aseyev’s term held in Izoliatsiia. These fighters not only sat in the same cells as those Ukrainians accused and sentenced because of their real or alleged pro-Ukrainian activities. The pro-Russian prisoners at Izoliatsiia went through similarly brutal torture often designed to extract preformulated confessions on, for instance, spying for Kyiv. The brutal persecution of “one’s own people” is a practice reminiscent of the Stalinist purges of the Bolshevik party and Soviet regime of the 1930s.

Stanislav Aseyev is an Expert on the Donbas with the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and author of, among other books, “A ‘Light Path’: The History of a Concentration Camp” (L’viv: Old Lion Press, 2020).

Andreas Umland is a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, and editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” published by ibidem Press in Stuttgart.

https://khpg.org/en/1608809257 

A larger report on prisoners in the occupied Donbas has been published in April 2021 by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs here: https://www.ui.se/butiken/uis-publikationer/ui-report/2021/prisoners-as-political-commodities-in-the-occupied-areas-of-the-donbas/.

 

Saisie par les Philippines, la Cour permanente d'arbitrage de La Haye doit se prononcer sur le conflit opposant Manille à Pékin en mer de Chine méridionale. Ce n'est pas le seul contentieux dans cet espace maritime où la Chine, le Vietnam, les Philippines, la Malaisie et Brunei revendiquent la (...) / Asie du Sud-Est, Chine, Japon, Malaisie, Philippines, Vietnam, Conflit, Droit international, Géopolitique, Histoire, Mer, Pétrole, Relations internationales, Transports, Matières premières, Brunei, Justice internationale, Mer de Chine, Pêche, Frontières - 2016/06

Around 87% of the $540 billion in total annual government support given worldwide to agricultural producers includes measures that are price distorting and that can be harmful to nature and health.  

The incoming President of the General Assembly says that hope is desperately needed for those billions around the world struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, devastation, and strife. In his first major interview, he told UN News that the General Assembly, as the UN’s most representative body, is ideally placed to give shape to that hope.  

UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet on Monday deplored “multiple and severe reports of alleged gross violations of human rights, humanitarian and refugee law” committed by all parties to the conflict in Tigray. 

Secretary-General António Guterres described Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan, as “a champion for women and girls”, announcing on Monday her appointment to lead the UN’s gender equality and empowerment entity, UN Women. 

Contre l'ordre actuel, deux types de combats se côtoient, parfois rivalisent. La propagande par le fait recherche une prise de conscience morale et politique, mais peine à maintenir l'élan initial. Moins en vogue, l'organisation privilégie un travail de longue haleine, plus collectif, moins (...) / États-Unis, Communication, Histoire, Internet, Mouvement de contestation, Mutation, Politique, Stratégie, Syndicalisme, Technologies de l'information, Technologie, Associations, Extrême gauche - 2016/06

Pictured– Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the Taliban’s new Prime Minister

 

In early September, the Taliban began to fill cabinet positions for the new, “provisional government” that will attempt to stabilize Afghanistan following America’s military occupation and disorderly withdrawal from the nation. While it is true that the makeup of this cabinet is expected to evolve over time, the initial round of appointments includes some very unsavory individuals. 

The government will be led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was a prominent political official while the Taliban governed Afghanistan from 1996-2001- given his close ties to the prior Taliban government, he is viewed as a sign of continuity with the pre-2001 Taliban by many in the international community. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the new acting interior minister, is the head of a militant group associated with the Taliban known as the Haqqani and is considered a wanted terrorist by the FBI.

These are not the early returns that most of us were hoping for, and the results fall well short of international expectations. Both the American State Department and the European Union have expressed dissatisfaction with the absence of women and non-Taliban members from governing positions, and the lack of ethnic diversity of a government that will oversee a very diverse nation. Afghan women have taken to the street to protest their lack of representation in government, and were allegedly beaten as a result.

These sorts of actions will not bring the Taliban closer to earning recognition from the United States or its global partners, nor will it ingratiate the Taliban with other global powers like China and Russia. The American State Department has said that the United States is in “no rush” to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and it seems that the international community generally holds to that line.

At this time it is important to step back, and ask ourselves the following question- as the Taliban is not, at this moment, working to earn legitimacy from the international community, then strategically, what is the Taliban hoping to achieve during its first few days in power?

From my perspective, there are two possible scenarios. 

First, there is the possibility that the Taliban is truly irredeemable, and that this new era of Taliban rule in Afghanistan will be just as brutal as the first. This perspective allows for an easy explanation of events so far – the Taliban has not disavowed its violent associations or appointed women to governing positions “yet” because it never had the intention of doing so. From this point of view, America was foolish to negotiate with the Taliban at all, and if the Taliban cannot be trusted under any condition, a military withdrawal from Afghanistan might prove to be a mistake. 

The second possibility is that the Taliban is delaying pursuing legitimacy with the international community in favor of shoring up its domestic flank. From this perspective, the Taliban is caught fighting to earn legitimacy on two opposite fronts: first at home, and second in the international community. Taking this perspective forces a somewhat more nuanced explanation of the Taliban’s early antagonism – the Taliban cannot offer the United States an ideal cabinet, nor can they appear to have their ideology tainted by their newfound relationship with the United States because doing so would leave them vulnerable to militants and terrorist groups that are even more extreme than the Taliban. Terrorist groups and militant organizations often compete with each other in order to earn legitimacy and support from individual fighters, which explains the turbulence that we have been seeing over the last few days. From this point of view, the Taliban’s initial signaling is not a threat to American interests, but an inevitable part of the process through which the Taliban can address its most pressing security needs before (potentially) working to compromise with the international community. Like it or not, a stable, internally secure Afghanistan will, likely, only come about if the Taliban is able to earn legitimacy both domestically and internationally. Without that stability, the prospects for sustained protection of human rights in Afghanistan are fleeting.

Now, here comes the tricky part. Rand conducted a study reviewing how terrorist conflicts end, and unless the United States is willing to return to war in Afghanistan, history suggests that the most likely path forward for the Taliban is political integration. In fact, the most common way that terrorist groups have been dissolved since 1968 is through integration with the political process. With any luck, the Taliban will drop its military ambitions and adopt a fully political approach – albeit one that would not mirror those that exist in the United States and Europe. More likely than not, full political integration of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then of Afghanistan in the international community, entails the United States and its partners around the world gradually working toward recognizing the legitimacy of the Taliban government. 

Of course, this is not to say that the United States should be in a rush to legitimize the Taliban, but diplomatic recognition should be dangled as a carrot for (relatively) good behavior. Consequently, there is a UN resolution pressing the Taliban to allow for free movement of people out of Afghanistan, and the State Department’s desire to see women serving in Afghanistan’s government is echoed by other members of the international community. These sorts of measures are effective only to the extent that the United States is willing to use its diplomatic tools. Not only is maintaining cordial relations important to the long term prospect of peace, but productive interactions with the Taliban are important in order for the United States to continue to extract the Americans and friendly Afghans who remain in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, a full scale refusal to recognize the Taliban government over the long term equates to trying to walk through a porcelain shop with narrow shelves with one hand tied behind your back. Should the Taliban compromise on the issues most important the the United States and the international community (namely- the proper treatment of women and girls, the free movement of people into and out of Afghanistan, and the humane treatment of foreign aid workers), we would be foolish to turn away the Taliban’s attempt at compromise. Allowing for the best, while preparing for the worst, means that formal diplomatic recognition needs to be put on the table as a bargaining chip that the Taliban can earn through good behavior.

Sometimes there are no easy answers to complicated problems – an outright refusal to recognize the Taliban under any circumstances puts an unnecessary chill on relations and paves the way back to a military conflict in Afghanistan. 

 

–

Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association

 

Rares sont les régions du monde à compter autant de bases militaires étrangères — en l'occurrence américaines et françaises — que le Golfe. Cette soldatesque a pour mission de défendre les intérêts de l'Occident dans une zone stratégique. La péninsule arabique recèle en effet les deux tiers des réserves (...) / États-Unis (affaires extérieures), France, Golfe, Iran, Proche-Orient, Monde arabe, Armée, Conflit, Défense, Pétrole - Golfe

Sur le front intérieur, la « guerre au terrorisme » conduit à une accumulation sans limites de « données » de tous types sur les personnes. Dans un jeu de surenchère technologique, l'échec de chaque technologie justifie le déploiement d'un arsenal toujours plus complexe… et toujours aussi peu « efficace (...) / Armement, Droit, Police, Technologie, Terrorisme, Télésurveillance - 2005/08

Ever since the African Union (AU) granted Israel an ‘observer status’, the organization has found itself entangled in a pitiful  web of political maneuvering and controversy. Only two months earlier, this same organization has joined rest of the world in condemning Israel for violating the international law with its reckless bombardment of Gaza, targeting civilians, and violent attacks inside the Al-Aqsa holy mosque.  

This latest decision is perhaps the worst and most dangerous in the organization’s history since it puts its political and ethical values into question. 

In July 2016, then Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited four influential African countries—Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia—to showcase or dangle a security and trade carrot and take his country’s relentless lobbying effort to gain AU oberver status since it lost such status with the Organization of African Unity in 2002.

As a country with the longest bilateral relationship with Israel and the one that was in desperate need to get air defense missiles to protect the GERD from potential attacks, Ethiopia was set to lead that quartet. And the quartet finally delivered and secured—at least for now—a priceless moral disinformation that Israel was hustling for a long time:

‘If the African Union does not consider the Jewish state a colonialist apartheid regime, who else might have the moral right to do so?’  

Headlines Matter

As international media interest in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank, the espionage gate turned the spotlight back on it.   

The AU decision came at a time when Israel’s rogue attitude and relentless engagement on criminalities that endanger all others except Israel are at the center stage of international political and security debate.

Though the Israeli intelligence has a dreadful record of violating international law in terms of espionage, abducting people from foreign countries, and carrying out assassinations, the following revelation confirms that it has been franchising and enabling ruthless dictators and other rogue actors to commit same crimes with ease:  

According to an investigation conducted by an international consortium of media and human rights groups, Pegasus is a “Military-grade spyware…for tracking terrorists and criminals”.  So far, those governments that the Israeli firm supplied used the software “in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” Moreover, a leaked list containing more than 50,000 phone numbers that Pegasus owners have sought or spied on includes heads of states such as France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

Pegasus is a malicious spook-ware used by the Israeli intelligence to silence critics and to corrupt or blackmail world leaders and other influencers. Furthermore, Israel sold that dangerous software to many tyrants around the world such as Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed to hack cellphones of human rights activists, opposition leaders, journalists and others.

Collusion To Sustain Apartheid  

Wittingly or unwittingly, enticed with trade and technology or blackmailed through dirty intelligence gathered by Israel’s spook-ware , the African Union took an action that is tantamount to being in collusion with Israel to bulwark that apartheid regime against a groundswell of international calls for BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions).

The founders of Ben & Jerry are Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. They are “proud Jews” who were ultimately fed up with Israel’s ever-expanding land theft in the occupied territories, the apartheid system, and the systematic ethnic-cleansing against the Palestinian people. They also reject the notion that scrutinizing or condemning Israel’s oppressive policies is anti-Semitic.

Though they avoided openly supporting the international BDS movement, the values they expressed in their New York Times OpEd clearly endorses it. “We believe business is among the most powerful entities in society. We believe that companies have a responsibility to use their power and influence to advance the wider common good,” they opined. This is likely to encourage other international corporations to follow their conscience or try to get on “the right side of history”.

Israel is well aware of the detrimental effect that the international BDS movement had on South Africa’s apartheid system and that is why its leadership went berserk in seeking vengeance against Ben & Jerry. 

No Moral Equivalence

Though some media groups portrayed this issue as an attempt to balance the scale since Palestine was granted such status in 2013, the truth of the matter is this: Inclusion of Palestine as an observer was more of a symbolic expression of solidarity with their cause against a colonial power that was bent on committing systematic ethnic-cleansing against the indigenous people of the land. 

Contrary to the decision to include Palestine, inclusion of Israel was done without any consultations with all member states or any opportunities to debate. And as Algeria’s Foreign Minister said “this decision has neither the vocation nor the capacity to legitimize the practices and behaviors of the said new observer which are totally incompatible with the values, principles, and objectives enshrined in the ‘Constitutive Act of the African Union.”

Inclusion of Israel would not only give it a freehand on spying and browbeating African leaders, torpedo any symbolic or substantive support to the Palestinian liberation cause; it will poison the continental spirit of unity and anti-colonialism.

Mutiny of Conscience

 In a strongly worded protest letter, the South African government described this divisive decision as an “unjust and unwarranted” that was taken “unilaterally without consultations with (AU) members”. The timing of the decision was even more offensive, or as underlined in the statement “…more shocking (as it came) in a year in which the oppressed people of Palestine were hounded by destructive bombardments and continued illegal settlements of the land”.

Lead by Algeria, 14 AU member states that include some with significant political clout such as South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, and Tunisia have formed what could be called ‘coalition of the unwilling’ to pressure the AU to revoke Israel’s status. The AU must take heed or risk abolishing its continental unity when it was needed the most. Sadly, the list only included two Arab member states out of ten. Prominently missing in action were countries that historically opposed Israel’s role such as Egypt, Somalia, and Libya. This may indicate that Israel would soon get a full membership of the Arab League.

Shortly after the list became public, a second-tier group that includes countries such as Egypt, Libya, and Djibouti has issued a joint statement questioning the decision based on technicality- the AU Chairman made a unilateral decision. Still shamefully missing are countries such as mine- Somalia. Here is the painful irony: there was a time when the Somali passport had a prominent warning against traveling to the two apartheid regimes (South Africa and Israel).      

Granting the last apartheid regime in the world the privilege of an observer at the African Union is a betrayal to the anti-colonialism and anti-racism principles that the organization was founded on, and indeed an insult to the legacy of Africa’s most principled son- Nelson Mandela whose pro Palestine stance was unwavering under all pressures.

 

 

Si le gouvernement consacre des centaines de milliards de dollars à la guerre, il ne trouve pas d'argent pour venir en aide aux anciens combattants américains du Vietnam. / États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), États-Unis (affaires intérieures), Irak, Armée, Conflit, Guérilla, Santé - (...) / États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), États-Unis (affaires intérieures), Irak, Armée, Conflit, Guérilla, Santé - 2004/04

L'Amérique, c'est le monde. En deux propositions d'un enchaînement logique audacieux, le président George W. Bush a en effet expliqué : « Maintenant que la guerre nous a été déclarée, nous conduirons le monde à la victoire. » Le 11 septembre 2001, en tout cas, les Etats-Unis ont essuyé des pertes (...) / États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Information, Médias, Presse, Terrorisme - 2001/10

With Andrian Prokip 

First published in:

Since 1991, energy delivery and gas supplies have been an important factor in post-Soviet Ukraine’s relations with both Russia and the European Union (EU). Russia was and still is partially dependent on the Ukrainian gas transportation system (GTS) and has not been able to take full control of its energy relations with the EU. Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, geopolitical considerations rather than economic needs have motivated Moscow to build new pipelines specifically designed to bypass Ukraine, and thereby to get a freer hand in its dealings with its westernizing “brother nation.”

The completion of the first Nord Stream pipeline from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany in late 2012 lowered the role of the Ukrainian GTS for Russian energy exports to the EU. It provided a necessary pre-condition for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and covert intervention in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. The forthcoming possible launch of the Nord Stream II pipeline would erase any remaining Russian dependency on Ukraine as a transit country and could be a prelude to new military escalation between Moscow and Kyiv.

For many years, the Ukrainian transit corridor was crucial to Europe’s gas supply. The routes that pass through Ukraine to Russia and the EU have always been more than sufficient to deliver as much gas volume as has been necessary for Europe. The EU’s and Russia’s reliance on the Ukrainian GTS has provoked international geoeconomic interest in Ukraine since its emergence as an independent state in 1991.

Today, the eventual completion of the Nord Stream 2 via the Baltic Sea looks increasingly likely. If this pipeline were to start operating, the Ukrainian GTS would become largely unnecessary. A loss of most or even all Russian-EU transit could call the future of the entire Ukrainian gas infrastructure into question.  Without the income from levies on the transit of Russian and Central Asian gas flowing through Ukraine to the EU, Ukraine may find that its gas transportation system is no longer economical.

If the Ukrainian GTS went out of business, this would have far-reaching implications for the EU’s energy supply, Ukraine’s relations with Russia, and larger European security issues. Many in Ukraine fear that the elimination of Russia and the EU’s dependence on Ukrainian gas transit will allow the Kremlin to provoke further instability in Ukraine.  The Kremlin would feel more comfortable to intensifying its hybrid war with Ukraine once Russia is no longer dependent on Ukrainian gas transportation. This could escalate into a full-scale as well as open (and not merely covert, proxy, and paramilitary) interstate war against its Slavic neighbor.

At the same time, it is increasingly obvious that the role of Russian and Central Asian pipeline gas in the EU’s energy market will gradually decline. Alternative energy sources are becoming more widely used. Remaining gas demand will increasingly be met via diversified supply mechanisms, including Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) tankers. These factors will decrease the EU’s dependency on both the gas supply from Russia  and the Ukrainian GTS. Recently, the adoption of the European Green Deal and a resulting acceleration of decarbonization have made this outcome more likely

However, Europe’s decarbonization plans may also be opening a new window of opportunity for Ukraine. In the best case scenario, an increasing demand for a variety of low carbon gases–such as biogas, biomethane, and hydrogen–could result in more energy collaboration between the EU and Ukraine. New joint projects for the generation and transportation of low carbon gas could become part and parcel of Ukraine’s future integration into European energy markets.

Ukraine has the potential to produce per year 7.5 to 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of biogas and biomethane, which is approximately 25 to 30 percent of its own yearly natural gas consumption. As the production costs of such gas are relatively high, demand for this energy source may currently be low in Ukraine. Yet, it could be attractive for European customers today. The prices of these energy sources may be more acceptable in, and the nature of these gases will be more relevant, to the EU than they are currently for Ukrainian customers. Technically, these types of gas can be delivered through existing pipelines without much modernization, following a few legislative amendments that are expected to pass soon.

While exporting biogas is a short-term option, a promising long-term prospect is the generation and export of Ukrainian hydrogen. The European Hydrogen Strategy, as part of last year’s European Green Deal, stipulates that “the Eastern Neighborhood, in particular Ukraine, and the Southern Neighborhood countries should be priority partners.” The Strategy calls for the installation, within the EU by 2030, of 40 gigawatts (GW) of electrolyzers – specialized installations generating hydrogen – that, in their turn, need to use renewable or other low-carbon energy for their operation. (Such provisions are necessary to guarantee that, in the end, the exploitation of new energy sources is indeed contributing to environmental protection.) More electrolyzers producing another 40 GW are envisaged for the EU’s neighbor countries from which the EU could then import this green energy. It is planned that electrolyzers producing 10 GW out of the planned new 40 GW capacity will be located in Ukraine.

Despite the positive outlook for the development of Ukrainian hydrogen production for Europe, this plan is facing some challenges in Ukraine. First, the Ukrainian natural gas pipelines are so far not suitable to transport hydrogen. They would need modernization to be used for such a novel export function.

Some Ukrainian gas transportation companies are, in cooperation with various technical universities and other academic institutions, already investigating the possibility of transmitting hydrogen through the existing distribution grids. These Ukrainian investigations may be also of interest to other countries with similar gas transportation systems, especially those in post-communist Eastern Europe. However, significant investment in new hydrogen production and transit infrastructure will be needed soon in order to create and take advantage of  a modernized energy transportation network.

Moreover, the general organization of Ukraine’s entire gas system needs to be rethought and redesigned. The current volumes of gas consumption and transit are much lower than the previously installed capacities allow – a misbalance that raises the generic fix-costs and final price of the transportation and distribution services. For instance, overall gas transit in Ukraine amounted to 141 bcm during the year 1998, but was at only 55.8 bcm by 2020, meaning that much of the GTS remains unused. Based on existing contracts, the amount of gas transit may decrease further to 40 bcm annually by 2024. There is a similarly radical change in Ukraine’s own gas consumption. While Ukraine’s gas consumption had been 118 bcm during its first year of independence of 1991, this number declined to 50.4 bcm in 2013, and went further down to 31 bcm in 2020. However, it’s important to note that the latter number does not include gas consumption in the non-government-controlled parts of the Donets Basin and in occupied Crimea.

A second major challenge for Kyiv will be determining how to raise enough domestic and foreign investments to take full advantage of Ukraine’s high green gas generation and transportation potential. Above all, funding is needed to redesign and reconstruct the existing natural gas grids and prepare for the transmission of hydrogen. The  production of hydrogen  requires the construction of new facilities to produce it, preferably by using renewable energy sources to run the electrolyzing process.

A third challenge of Ukraine’s entry into EU’s emerging green gas market will be Kyiv’s energy relations and competition with Moscow. Presumably, the Kremlin will not wait for the EU’s demand for fossil fuels to decrease and for income from current Russian energy exports to the EU to shrink. Russia will also try to become a green gas and hydrogen exporter to the EU. There is a risk that Russia will draw on its experience conducting trade and (mis)information wars to limit Ukraine’s ability to supply hydrogen to Europe through defamation, subversion and intervention. This threat will become especially pertinent if the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is indeed launched, and the EU becomes entirely independent from the Ukrainian GTS. Russia cannot be expected to engage in fair competition with Ukraine and could even employ para- or regular military means – as it, in some ways, partly already does – to improve its position in the European energy market.

Still, trying to meet these three challenges could contribute to Ukraine’s energy transition and its emergence as a new green economy. Independent from geopolitical developments, the prevailing ecological, industrial, and technological trends are already dictating such a transformation. In particular, Ukraine’s energy transition could help to compensate for the already predictable losses that Ukraine will incur from the decreasing importance of traditional natural gas transit. Helping Ukraine to adapt its GTS and production facilities to the demands of the European Green Deal is an opportunity for the EU to support Ukraine in the face of the Nord Stream 2. Kyiv will need outside support to redesign its gas transportation and distribution systems and to modernize existing gas production facilities and build new ones. Finally, Ukraine will need new transit and export agreements on supplying green gas to the EU, and possibly to other countries in non-EU Europe, North America, or elsewhere.

Strategic investment into Ukraine’s energy industry, including its low-carbon gas generation and transportation system would not only have narrowly geoeconomic, but also wider geopolitical implications. Assistance to Ukraine would help Kyiv contain the Kremlin’s ongoing attempts to unleash further socioeconomic instability in Ukraine. Moreover, Washington and London would be supporting the sovereignty and independence of a country that once possessed the world’s third largest arsenal of atomic weapons. Thereby, the two Western signatory states of the famous 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United States and United Kingdom, would indirectly strengthen the world-wide nuclear non-proliferation regime.

A similar story goes for two other countries that, in the 1990s, had inherited as well as given up Soviet atomic weapons, and also received Budapest Memoranda. Belarus and Kazakhstan too have been subject to Russian – so far only verbal – irredentist claims. Support for Belarus and Kazakhstan’s sovereignties would, like in the case of strengthening Ukraine’s resilience, be beneficial to the functioning of the worldwide non-proliferation regime. Such an approach further applies to two additional official nuclear-weapons states, France and China, that also provided Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan with their own governmental security assurances in December 1994. Any support that Paris and Beijing provide to former nuclear-weapons states that gave up all of their atomic war heads voluntarily would be a sign of support for the geopolitical logic behind the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, one of humanity’s most important agreements.

However, the main issue is here the future relationship between the EU and Kyiv. By supporting Ukraine’s energy transition, Brussels could strengthen a country in which an entire revolution, the Euromaidan uprising of 2013-2014, was conducted under European flags. While the three-month Euromaidan protests were not exclusively about Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation, they began in November 2013 to secure Kyiv’s signing of an Association Agreement with the EU. Ukraine’s Western integration, in turn, was the pretext of Russia’s military aggression in Southern and Eastern Ukraine in 2014. The Kremlin has since been conducting its hybrid war against Ukraine as a form of punishment for Kyiv’s decision to adopt EU norms and values.

Finally, Germany could support Ukraine’s energy system to partially atone itself for the damage that it has done to the geopolitics of Eastern Europe with its two Nord Stream pipeline projects. Arguably, the full opening of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in October 2012 was a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for Russia’s military attack on Ukraine, one-and-a-half years later. Until 2012, Ukraine had, through its control over a large part of Gazprom’s pipeline connections to the EU, considerable economic leverage vis-à-vis Russia which will be further reduced should Nord Stream 2 also go online. The United States, United Kingdom and Germany would do themselves and the world a service by taking advantage of Ukraine’s considerable potential to become a major low-carbon gas supplier for Europe and beyond.

Andrian Prokip is an Energy Analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and Senior Associate at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.

Andreas Umland is Research Fellow at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and Senior Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv.

https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraines-low-carbon-gas-potential-and-the-eu/

 

 

 

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