December 21:
The coming winter could provide Kyiv with greater leverage against Russian-backed separatists, USA Today reports. According to the paper, the government of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is attempting to take advantage of the impending cold to woo citizens in the country's restive east by reinstating pensions, salaries, and restoring other government services in areas that it recaptured from separatist forces this past summer. The goal is to lessen the appeal of Russia and its proxies, and to show "the population in occupied territory that the situation under the Ukrainian government is much, much better," Col. Oleksiy Nozdrachov, Ukraine's chief of military and civilian cooperation in the Donbas, has explained.
December 22:
Russia is now facing a "full-fledged" economic crisis, according to the country's former finance minister. As a result of what Kremlin officials have termed a "perfect storm" of plunging oil prices, Western sanctions and capital flight, Russia is facing a dire economic situation, Reuters reports Alexei Kudrin as telling a news conference. Conditions, Kudrin asserts, have been made worse by a lack of structural reforms on the part of the Russian government. According to him, the impact of Russia's deteriorating economic situation will begin to be felt in earnest in 2015, and is likely to include a downgrade of Russia's debt to "junk" status.
December 23:
As its conflict with Moscow continues, Kyiv is seeking stronger security ties with the West. The Washington Post reports that Ukraine's parliament has voted to formally rescind the country's nonaligned status, paving the way for it to potentially join NATO - something a plurality of Ukrainians now desire. The move is a preemptive one, insofar as there is no indication from the Alliance that it is prepared to accept Ukraine as a member at the moment. Nevertheless, the largely-symbolic decision has elicited an angry reaction from Moscow, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telling reporters that the move "is counterproductive and only escalates confrontations and creates an illusion that by adopting such laws it might be possible to settle a profound domestic crisis in Ukraine."
December 25:
Just days after Ukraine's parliament voted to annul the country's nonaligned status - a symbolic move intended as a signal that it is prepared to join NATO - Russia is pushing back against the possibility of NATO expansion. China's Xinhua news agency reports that Russia's foreign ministry has warned of retaliatory consequences if the Alliance does indeed resume its previous eastward momentum, which has stalled since the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. "NATO's possible further enlargement eastward would inevitably lead to a very serious military-political shift not only in Europe but also around the world," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich has told reporters. "Cooperation in such fields as economy and energy would be obstructed" as a result, Lukashevich said.
December 26:
The Russian government's new military doctrine may have stepped away from the notion of preemptive nuclear force, but it still contains some old staples of the U.S.-Russian confrontation. According to RT, the document, which has formally been approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, identifies as a threat "the creation and deployment of global strategic antiballistic missile systems" - something which it says "undermines the established global stability and balance of power in nuclear missile capabilities." It also objects to "the implementation of the 'prompt strike' concept," a current focus of the Pentagon, as well as the "intent to deploy weapons in space and deployment of strategic conventional precision weapons."
Russia's deteriorating economic situation is starting to adversely impact the strategic ties the Kremlin is seeking to build with Egypt. Cairo's Al-Ahram newsweekly reports that Russia - which serves as Egypt's third-largest wheat supplier, providing a quarter of the country's total imports of the grain - will begin to apply a tariff to its wheat exports beginning in early 2015. The duty, though minor ($43 per ton), represents part of the Russian government's efforts to mitigate the declining price of the ruble, the paper explains.
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