Where Does Russia Stand on the Israel-Hamas War?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

When Hamas launched its attack against Israel on Oct. 7, some observers were quick to suspect the Moscow-Tehran axis at work. Officials and experts were concerned that Russia could exploit the chaos surrounding the attack, and push the Kremlin even closer to Iran, which is allied with the Palestinian group. 

Russia, they argued, was deliberately and directly fueling conflict in the region to broaden its battlefield with the West. Others drew direct comparisons between Hamas’ vicious onslaught and Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Indeed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that one was “a terrorist organization that attacked Israel” and the other “a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine.” (Many Palestinians took issue with this with this characterization.)

But it was Russian President Vladimir Putin to whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu officially spoke over the phone after the attack, while at the same time refusing an offer from Zelensky for a state visit to Israel in its time of need. Putin has over the years visited Israel and cast himself as a loyal ally of the Israeli state, promoting cultural ties and visa-free travel between the two countries.

On Oct. 13, Putin said that Russia could help mediate because it has “good” and “traditional” relations with both sides. For years, he has sought to cultivate strong ties with Israel while also backing the Palestinian cause. The ties were not shattered even by Russia’s war in Ukraine. A pillar of Moscow’s approach to the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is to retain positive relations with all involved parties.

Moscow has long maintained close relations with Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza and enjoys Iranian backing. Hamas has both political and military wings, and some Western states, such as Australia and New Zealand, have only declared the military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, to be a terrorist organization. Others, such as Canada and the United States, have not made this distinction.

The Kremlin, for its part, has never declared either wing of Hamas to be a terrorist group. Rather, eager to carve out a niche in the Middle East peace process, Russian diplomats have tried to unify different Palestinian factions, including Hamas, into a single political organization, to restart the peace process and promote a two-state solution.

Hamas delegations have frequented Moscow, meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who holds the Middle Eastern file at the foreign ministry. Last March, Hamas sent a high-level delegation to Russia. Moscow has consulted with Palestinian factions in Doha, Qatar, and Ramallah, in the West Bank.

Those talks showed that Hamas is far from a Russian puppet: In one round of negotiations, held in Moscow in February 2019, the group’s leadership refused to back a final statement brokered by the Russian hosts.

Over the years, some Russian-made weapons have made their way into Gaza, likely via Iran. But there is no evidence that Russia supported Hamas in planning or executing its surprise attack on Israel.

Meanwhile, Kremlin officials have blamed the United States for Hamas’ attack, while not condemning the incursion in explicit terms. Three days after the assault, Putin, while meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in Moscow, raised concerns about the “catastrophic increase” in both Israeli and Palestinian deaths.

The Russian president reiterated his government’s position that the formation of a Palestinian state is “necessary,” while also blasting American policies, unsurprisingly placing most of the blame for the bloodshed on Washington’s doorstep.

 “I think that many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East,” remarked Putin. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also declared that it was a part of Washington's “manic obsession to incite conflicts.”

On Oct. 13, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” and presented his country’s draft resolution to the UN Security Council, which “strongly condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism.” It was rejected.

Russian officials have also been busy speaking with their Egyptian, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Turkish counterparts about various dimensions of the crisis, such as the risks of spillover, efforts to negotiate a ceasefire, and the plight of Palestinian refugees. Such outreach to regional players has enabled Moscow to deepen its relationships in the Middle East.

Since launching its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has dramatically deepened its cooperation with Iran. In return for Iranian combat drones and other military gear, Russia has stepped up its defence support for Tehran, including with assistance for its missile and space-launched vehicle programs. There has been a flurry of Iranian-Russian military engagement, including Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s recent tour of an arms exhibition in Tehran.

Once an eager mediator in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, Russia has also lost enthusiasm for seeing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action restored. After its invasion of Ukraine, Russia ceased to push for meaningful and timely progress in the nuclear talks, creating a de facto shield for Iran’s near-nuclear status. Russia is enabling rather than constraining Tehran in the region.

Moscow hopes to deflect Western attention and resources away from Ukraine by cultivating new global pressure points and distractions, and the Hamas-Israel conflict has made this easier.

 

Poland’s PiS Fails to Remain in Power

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

When you seem in danger of losing an upcoming election, one way of retaining support is by criticizing your historical enemies. But it didn’t work for Poland’s national-conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) in the Oct. 15 parliamentary vote.

Though it won the most votes by far, it lost power to a three-party coalition led by Civic Platform (PO), the country’s largest opposition party. Its leader, Donald Tusk, becomes prime minister.

 At the end of May, the government had instituted a commission to investigate Russian influence on Polish politics, a move widely seen as aimed at discrediting Tusk, who was accused of having been too friendly toward Russia and President Vladimir Putin while prime minister between 2007 and 2014, and making gas deals favourable to Moscow before he went to Brussels to be the president of the European Council between 2014 and 2019. The European Union has been withholding $37 billion in post-pandemic funds over what it considers the politicisation of Poland’s courts.

The PiS made attacks on the EU and Germany a key part of its electoral campaign. Tusk was also accused of being a puppet of Berlin, the very country which devastated Poland between 1939 and 1945. Anti-German rhetoric flourished during the campaign. In videos, the PiS leaned heavily on anti-German sentiment.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski issued warnings about close relations with Berlin, contending that “the Germans look down on us.” He even cautioned that when it comes to Germany, Poland must not develop Stockholm syndrome, “where the victim loves its own executioner.” He accused Berlin of trying to turn the EU into a federal “German fourth Reich.”

Broadcaster TVP’s EU correspondent Dominica Cosic claimed on Sept. 25 that Germany (along with France) promised Ukraine a fast entry to the European Union “if Kyiv helps overthrow the current Polish government.”

So at the same time, Warsaw also began moving away from uncritical support for Ukraine. While Poland has been steadfast in its support for Kyiv, including taking in 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees, there have recently been cracks in the friendship.

The downturn in relations began with a dispute over grain shipments. Ukraine needs to export its harvest, and land routes are now critical because Russia is deliberately attacking ports on both the Black Sea and the Danube River.

The grain was supposed to move on to countries in Africa and the Middle East, but bottlenecks meant that much of it piled up in silos in Poland, pushing down local prices.

The PiS government responded by banning imports of Ukrainian grain and food products unless the shipments were transiting through the country non-stop. Kyiv responded by launching a lawsuit at the World Trade Organization.

Things worsened when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the United Nations General Assembly in New York Sept. 19 that Kyiv was working to preserve land routes for its grain exports, but that “political theatre” in Poland was helping Moscow’s cause.

In response, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told Zelensky “never to insult Poles again” at an election rally Sept. 22. Poland, he added, would no longer send weapons to Ukraine amid the grain dispute. President Andrzej Duda two days earlier had compared Ukraine to a drowning man who risks dragging his rescuers down with him.

There was talk of how Ukraine should be “grateful” for Polish support. Members of the far-right Konfederacja (Confederation) Alliance, a PiS ally, picketed the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw and held up a mock invoice for Poland’s support that proclaimed the total cost of helping Kyiv to be over 100 billion zloty (about $32 billion) and wrote: “Paid: zero. Gratitude: none.”

This is a part of the world where historical memories remain strong. Poles remember when, during World War II, pro-Hitler Ukrainian nationalists hoped to seize all of Galicia, and when Ukrainian armed bands murdered thousands of Poles.

Between 1942 and 1945, members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) hacked Polish victims to death and drowned women, children and the elderly in wells in the Volhynia region of what is now northwest Ukraine.

Poland’s parliament on July 21 resolved that the massacre of some 100,000 Poles by Ukrainian nationalists was a genocide, with Kaczynski calling it “even worse than the German genocides.”

When a former member of the Nazi-organized Second World War Waffen-SS Galicia Division, composed of Ukrainian volunteers, was mistakenly honoured in the Canadian House of Commons Sept. 22, Polish Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek announced he intended to initiate action to secure the extradition of Yaroslav Hunka to Poland to be charged with war crimes.

Not forgotten either is that after 1945, huge parts of eastern Poland, including cities like Lviv, were grabbed by the Soviet Union, and kept, of course, by modern Ukraine.

So while the Ukrainian refugees in Poland have thus far enjoyed the sympathy and support of Poles, their situation is changing. A survey of Poles by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre published Oct. 2 found that support for taking in Ukrainian refugees has dropped to 52 per cent this year from 80 per cent in 2022. Konfederacja openly called for sending Ukrainians back to Ukraine.

We will see if this kind of rhetoric continues now that the election is over and the PiS has lost.

 

Rise of Russia's "Defensive Agressors"

 Henry Srebrnik, [Halifax] Chronicle Herald

What do Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and now Vladimir Putin have in common?

They are Russian leaders who invaded bordering states because they feared their own country would come under threat. I have called them “defensive aggressors.” I know this sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s their mindset.

Russia has been attacked numerous times by, among others, Mongol, Polish, Swedish, French, and German armies (in the last case, more than once). These aggressors often laid the country to waste – this was especially true of the Nazis in the Second World War.

Russia’s attitude has been shaped by this history. It often reacts to what it perceived as threats by going on the offensive. Call it a form of national paranoia, but it is not unfounded.

Following the 1945 victory over Hitler, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin established a buffer zone of Communist-run states in eastern Europe, under an alliance system known as the Warsaw Pact. Western nations meanwhile, had created NATO. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union reacted with force against any attempt by its satellite states to leave its orbit.

In 1956, a popular uprising in Hungary followed a speech by Khrushchev in Moscow in February in which he attacked Stalin’s tyranny. Encouraged by the new freedom of debate, a rising tide of unrest and discontent in Hungary, now a Communist-ruled nation, broke out into active fighting that Oct. 23.

The rebels won the first phase of the revolution, and Imre Nagy became premier, agreeing to establish a multiparty system. But on November 1, he declared Hungarian neutrality and announced Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact.

This triggered a response by Moscow three days later. Claiming NATO was behind the revolt, the Soviets invaded Hungary to stop the revolution, and Nagy was executed for treason.

Twelve years later came the “Prague Spring.” Changes in the leadership of Communist-run Czechoslovakia led to attenpts to “humanize” the application of communist doctrines. The economy had been slowing since the early 1960s, and the government responded with reforms to improve the economy.

In early 1968, Antonin Novotny was ousted as the head of the Communist Party, and he was replaced by Alexander Dubcek. The Dubcek government ended censorship in early 1968, and the acquisition of this freedom resulted in a public expression of broad-based support for reform and a public sphere in which government and party policies could be debated openly.

Soviet leaders were concerned over these developments in Czechoslovakia. Recalling the 1956 uprising in Hungary, they worried that if Czechoslovakia carried reforms too far, other satellite states in Eastern Europe might follow, leading to a widespread rebellion against Moscow’s leadership.

Warsaw Pact troops from the USSR, Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Bulgaria invaded the country on August 20–21, 1968. The Soviets forced Dubcek from power and hard-line Communists resumed ruling the country.

I visited Czechoslovakia and Hungary, among other eastern European nations, in 1977 and I found the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia particularly depressing.

Afghanistan was invaded in 1979 to uphold a pro-Soviet regime. The country’s government had been ousted a year earlier and power was now shared by two Marxist-Leninist political groups.

Bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim population, insurgencies arose by groups known collectively as the mujahideen. It prompted the Soviets to send in some 30,000 troops that Dec. 24.

The Afghan War quickly settled down into a stalemate, with more than 100,000 Soviet troops controlling little more than the cities. Mikhail Gorbachev, who assumed the leadership of the Soviet Union in 1985, oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet forces after the failed decade-long campaign, which some have called Moscow’s “Vietnam.” This folly was one of the reasons the Soviet Union would dissolve two years later.

So now we have another Russian war, this time against a country that was itself part of the USSR. Again, its desire to move out of what Russia considers its geographic space since 2014 has resulted in the war launched in 2022.

Russia’s history makes it a difficult nation to deal with and it’s why, as a colleague has remarked, for Moscow a neighbouring state is seen as either a vassal or an enemy.