Mure says Ukraine’s security and Russia’s aims block a deal

Ukraine’s security requirements and Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine and Europe make a US-led agreement unattainable, senior researcher Liis Mure told ERR in an interview on ETV’s “Ukraine Studio”.

Mure said proposals for new dialogue formats, confidence-building measures and arms-control mechanisms in Europe echoed arrangements that already existed, including through the OSCE and a former NATO-Russia dialogue format. Russia, she said, had changed or rendered nearly all such agreements ineffective, or withdrawn from them.

She said it was difficult to see how an agreement could both meet demands to respect all countries’ sovereignty, territorial integrity and right to make political decisions, and address Russia’s stated security concerns. Russia had not abandoned its objectives in Ukraine, Mure said.

Mure also questioned how the United States and Russia could reach an agreement on Europe’s security architecture without European participation. France’s foreign minister had said Europeans would be represented in some way at talks in Abu Dhabi the following week. But, Mure said, Russia’s ongoing “grey-zone” attacks against Europe made it difficult to identify common ground for progress. Expanding negotiations from Ukraine to Europe would not necessarily make an agreement easier or faster, she added.

She said major differences remained over security guarantees. Ukraine wants some European units stationed in the country and is unwilling to reduce its armed forces below a certain size or give up its long-range strike capability. Russia wants Ukraine to do so, making it difficult to reach an arrangement that both sides would consider acceptable.