September 25:
Russia's aggression against Ukraine is fostering a new and unexpected drive toward nuclearization in Eastern Europe. Lebanon's NaharNet reports that Poland's senior statesman, Lech Walesa, had declared that the country should seek to acquire nuclear weapons as a hedge against Russia. "Putin has been trying to intimidate us with his nuclear weapons, so why shouldn't we have our own arsenal?" Walesa has reportedly told a Polish newspaper. "We should borrow, lease nuclear weapons and show Putin that if a Russian soldier poses one foot on our land uninvited, we will attack."
September 26:
In what is being dubbed by Russian lawmakers as a "historic" move, the Russian State Duma has formally ratified the treaty creating the Eurasian Economic Union (EES). Radio Free Europe reports that the EES is essentially a customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, modeled after the European Union. It is scheduled to formally start functioning on January 1, 2015. The EES, moreover, could soon become bigger; both Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have signaled their intention to join the economic bloc by the end of the year.
September 27:
The growing strategic rivalry between Russia and the United States is playing out in the water, the International Business Times reports. "A submarine race is in the making" between the two countries, the paper notes, highlighting the recent U.S. announcement of a new submarine class to confront threats from Russia and China, and Russia's concomitant announcement of planned upgrades to its submarine fleet.
September 28:
Russia's auto industry is emerging as the latest victim of Western sanctions. The Moscow Times reports that the Russian car market, hit hard by the effects of U.S. and European sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, is poised for a series of mergers as struggling auto dealers seek to stay afloat. "The dealership business is fragmented, and apparently it's on the threshold of consolidation. Everyone is talking to everyone," one speaker at the recent Reuters Russia Investment Summit noted. These conversations are a product of necessity; car sales in Russia this August were 26 percent lower than a year earlier.
September 29:
New rhetoric from Moscow has spiked fears of Russian encroachment in the Baltics, reports the Washington Post. Recent statements by Russian officials that they intend to "defend" ethnic Russians beyond the Federation's borders have caused jitters in the "near abroad." Most vulnerable is Latvia, which has the highest proportion of ethnic Russians (some 30 percent) in its population. "Russia and Putin still have a geopolitical interest in the post-Soviet territories," Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis has said. "Russia is trying to use the Russian-speaking minority as a tool to aggressively promote its objectives."
October 1:
Moscow is moving forward with plans to militarize the Arctic over the next two years. "For the defense of national interests in the Arctic, a multiservice task force will be formed," The Moscow Times cites Colonel General Oleg Salyukov, the commander-in-chief of Russia’s ground forces, as saying. "A motorized rifle arctic brigade is now being formed in the Murmansk region [in northwest Russia]. The second arctic brigade will be formed in 2016 and will be stationed in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region [east of the Ural Mountains in the Arctic Circle]."
Moscow's plans to defend ethnic Russians beyond its borders is part of a larger initiative to expand support for its foreign policy agenda abroad, a foreign ministry official has intimated. Russia is attempting to harness "our multi-million strong diaspora [as] a reliable partner of Russia, from which we have the read to expect deep internal moral support and understanding of our foreign policy initiatives," Anatoly Makarov, head of the Russian foreign ministry’s division of compatriot engagement, has told news website Rubaltic.ru. To that end, "we are carrying out a line so that Russian compatriots regardless of where they live are guaranteed all rights and freedoms in conformity with international standards, are not restricted in the right to use their native language, and have the opportunity to preserve the culture and traditions of their historical Motherland," Makarov has said.
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