Russia makes it clear: It wants to change the world as it deems fit. Or at least reformat Europe as we know it.

Natalia Ischenko, the Balkan Observer’s editor, explains How Russia Came Up With New Demands Toward the U.S. and NATO, what is behind Moscow's latest move, and how it is reflected in its ultimatums. 

Ms. Ischenko posits that the Kremlin would like to restore the USSR, albeit in its incomplete format, i.e. its pre-1939 version. Accordingly, it would like to divide Ukraine while leaving the Baltics to its own devices. Naturally, these borders, both real and those existing in the Kremlin’s imagination, have changed significantly since 1939. 

Belarus is a good example of what these changes look like.

Once part of Poland, over the years Belarus’s western borders have been successfully integrated into the "Russian realm". Russia has, therefore, no intention of sharing these territories with the West and would like Brest and Grodno to join its neo-USSR project.

Ukraine, however, is traditionally more problematic for the Kremlin. Ms. Ischenko believes that in Russia’s world, Ukrainian territories that are on the other side of the Zbruch river are neither "Russified" nor "Sovietized" enough. Accordingly, the country’s "geopolitical pundits" do not envision the entire Ukraine inside this reformatted version of Europe. Instead, they would like to turn Ukraine’s western regions into either a new state, for example, Galicia, or divide them among Poland, Hungary, and Romania – a grandiose plan that Moscow has no intention of concealing. In 2014, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an infamous Russian politician known for voicing the Kremlin's most toxic ideas, officially offered such an arrangement to the West. 

Ms. Ischenko notes that Moscow’s attempt to resurrect the Soviet Russian empire using soft power only has fallen short of its goal. Instead of resorting to hybrid warfare against Ukraine, i.e. spreading disinformation and sponsoring pro-Kremlin political projects, Russia opted for the good old method of military aggression. This shift was first observed in 2019 when the Russian army’s top ranks discussed the new approaches to Russia’s military policy.

In spring 2021, Moscow attempted to test this approach. However, the reaction from the Ukrainian government and population as well as the collective West – the EU, NATO, the U.S., and other prominent western countries – showed that the Russian "ride to Kyiv" would be "very bumpy".

The 2021 large-scale military training DEFENDER Europe, featuring 21 NATO member states and partner countries, further proved that the U.S. is not planning to abandon Europe. Meanwhile, NATO’s eastern flank is showing decisiveness and willingness to fight. Read more in Ms. Ischenko’s article How Russia Came Up with New Demands Toward the U.S. and NATO.