1/7: The most frustrating aspect of the #Kremlin's current escalation vis-a-vis #Ukraine is the rationality of its action and simplicity of the situation: The #EuropeanUnion has the economic means to stop #Putin.
2/7: #Russia's economy and budget are dependent on income from Russian energy exports to the EU. However, the EU will not use this leverage - even though the collective costs of doing so may not be high any more, in view of #LNG, renewables, contingency plans etc.
3/7: When the EU did impose some moderately serious sanctions in 2014, that was not a response to #Russia's aggression against #Ukraine. It was a punishment for Moscow's killing of more than 200 EU citizens on the #MH17 flight sho by a Russian missile over Ukraine, in July 2014.
4/7: As long as #Russia does not kill, during the current escalation, many EU citizens, as it did in 2014, the EU will not get its act together and will not impose serious sanctions. Putin & Co. know this - and that is why they are escalating.
5/7: The economic costs of a war are low. The political gains for #Putin's regime from a victorious war against #Ukraine are high. The war distracts the electorate from Russia's many domestic problems, before the #StateDuma elections in September 2021.
6/7: At least in the view of some people in Moscow, it would be irrational for the Kremlin to not go to war. Russia's attack on Ukraine in 2014 improved regime stability. Why not try a second time and simply be more careful to not kill EU citizens as in 2014? @ukraineoffice
2/7: Im Lichte der niedrigen ökonomischen Kosten und hohen innenpolitischen Gewinne einer gewaltsamen #Eskalation, wären ungetätigte #Interventionen in #Südossetien sowie #Abchasien 2008 und auf der #Krim sowie im #Donezbecken 2014 realpolitische Unterlassungssünden gewesen.
3/7: Angesichts der sinkenden Popularität Putins aufgrund (in der offiziellen Statistik Russlands beschönigter) humanitärer, sozialer und ökonomischer Folgen der #Coronakrise sowie der Verwandlung #Nawalny|s in einen politischen #Märtyrer, hat sich seit 2020 der Einsatz erhöht.
3/5: Yet, the volumes and papers published in @ibidem11's #SPPS during the last three years will get additional @Scopus quotations during the next years. More monographs and collections are in print and preparation: ibidem.eu/en/reihen/gese….
3/6: Both, the so-called Black-Green Coalition, i.e. a joint government of the @cducsubt and @GrueneBundestag, and the so-called Traffic Light Coalition, i.e. a joint government of @diegruenen, @spdde and @fdpbt, would be a first in Berlin.
1/4: This could be the preparation of a military escalation in southern #Ukraine that would transform the Ukrainian-Russian conflict from a Russian "delegated inter-state #war" (@HauterJakob) into an ordinary inter-state war between the two countries. ytro.ru/news/life/2021…
2/4: After a successful Russian court trial, the #Kremlin would claim to have the legal right to receive fresh water from the #Dnipro river (which starts in #Russia). Kyiv would not respect such a Russian court decision.
3/4: #Russia could invade southern mainland Ukraine to implement a respective court order and try to capture the now dry #NorthCrimeanCanal from the Dnipro to #Crimea. This would mean the first, from Moscow's side, official employment of regular Russian troops in dryland Ukraine.
20th century problems on 21st century #Crimea: Unlike in Soviet times, #watersupply is not any longer a complicated infrastructural, but today a simple financial issue. 1/4
A broad variety of #desalinationtechnologies is today allowing many countries with insufficient #freshwater reserves, e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia or Iraq, to live on desalinated sea water. Yet, #Moscow is unwilling to invest money into building #Crimean d #desalination plants. 2/4