Snapshot: Crisis in Eastern Europe

One might be forgiven for thinking that today’s headlines come straight from the height of the Cold War. Boarder crises in Eastern Europe, Russian troop movements, reciprocal sanctions between European powerhouses and Russia’s allies, and flash points in the Black Sea.

Over recent weeks, Russia has relied on four key pillars to strengthen their bargaining power in Eastern Europe, weaken the European economy and increase their regional influence.

1. Destabilisation: weaponising the migrant community illegally crossing from Belarus into Poland;
2. Threats: massing troops on the boarder of Ukraine, with a suspected invasion imminent;
3. Influence projection: bolstering the relative power of their Serbian and pro-Serbian allies in the Balkans;
4. Economic and energy coercion: holding Europe hostage over the use of Russian gas.

Indeed, the symbiosis of all four key pillars of Russian foreign policy provide a perfect storm for NATO and the European Union. Across the entirety of Eastern Europe, from the Polish border though to Serbia in the Balkans, NATO faces a broad threat environment characterised by the full gamut of conflict: kinetic, non-kinetic and grey zone activities.

George Barros and Kateryna Stepanenko analysed Russia’s broad foreign policy tools in this month’s Russia in Review, published by the Institute for the Study of War.

Over recent days, significant media coverage has drawn attention to the border crisis between Poland and Belarus. Throughout the crisis, Middle Eastern migrants have been attempting to illegally enter Poland via Belarus, with accusations that the large movement of people has been facilitated by Belarus and Russia as a tool to destabilise Poland and Western Europe.

“Belarusian security personnel directed roughly 2,000 migrants to cross the Kuźnica-Bruzgi border crossing in Poland on November 8, providing them with directions and tools to destroy fences. Belarusian personnel began facilitating the travel of migrants into Poland and the Baltic states in June 2021, but previous single-day crossing numbers remained in the low hundreds,” the pair wrote.

“The Kremlin is enabling, if not directly controlling, Belarus’ escalation against Poland to pressure the EU and support misinformation claiming a NATO campaign to destroy Belarus. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov demanded the EU provide financial assistance to Belarus to encourage it to stop migrants entering the EU, claiming the EU should financially support Belarus the way it supported Turkey with Syrian migrants in 2016.”

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Just hours ago, it was reported that the European Union has increased sanctions on Belarus in response to the migrant crisis.

While actively destabilising Europe by assaulting national borders, Russia has also undertaken a troop build-up on the border of Ukraine, prompting analysts to fear that Russia was preparing for an invasion of the country. The pair, however, note that while the posture of the Russian military has changed there remains little evidence that the country will undertake an invasion. Though, the threat signals from the Kremlin have been read loud and clear.

“The Russian military began conducting several anomalous troop movements near the Ukrainian and Belarusian border in late October 2021. ISW does not assess from available sources that recent Russian movements are in preparation for an imminent offensive action against Ukraine. However, these movements are part of a wider change in Russian force posture to shift additional forces westward and may support preparations for offensive operations against Ukraine in spring 2022,” the pair note.

This aggressive posture was recently reinforced when Russia sent paratroopers to Belarus to undertake a military exercise – although media outlets have now reported that the paratroopers have travelled back to Russia, having finalised their drills with two soldiers dying after their parachutes were tangled in the wind.

Russia’s strategy to project dominance throughout Europe’s eastern border has extended right through to the Balkans by actively supporting their Serbian allies and continuously undermining pro-European peace keeping efforts in the region.

“The Kremlin politically weakened the Office of the High Representative (OHR), a key US and EU-backed international institution devoted to maintaining the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the 1992-1995 Bosnian War,” the pair note.

“The Kremlin seeks to end the EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, expel NATO’s headquarters in Sarajevo, and increase Russian influence in the Balkans.”

To strengthen their influence, Russia has also come to the aid of pro-Serbian secessionist movements in the Balkan region, including the threats from pro-Serb Bosnian politician Milorad Dodik.

“Dodik claimed on October 8 that Republika Srpska’s army, tax administration, and judicial system would fully separate from Bosnia-Herzegovina’s central government by the end of November 2021. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) condemned international criticism of Dodik’s secession statements as ‘demonisation of the Serbian people’,” Barros and Stepanenko note.

In addition to the hard power wielded by Russia and its regional allies, Russia has strengthened its economic coercion over their European adversaries and bought alliances with neighbouring nations by providing cheap gas.

Indeed, the energy crisis came to a head this week as Belarus threatened to turn off gas supplies to the European Union as they head into winter in response to the Polish-Belarusian migrant crisis, prompting a blunt response from Prime Minister Boris Johnson that Europe must either pick cheap Russian gas or support their liberal European allies in the East – but not both.

“And we hope that our friends may recognise that a choice is shortly coming between mainlining ever more Russian hydrocarbons in giant new pipelines and sticking up for Ukraine and championing the cause of peace and stability, let me put it that way,” PM Johnson is reported to have said.

Despite using gas as a threat to their Western neighbours, Russia has used gas to entice new and reinvigorated relations in Armenia and Moldova, despite the latter having elected a notionally pro-Western government.

“The Kremlin seeks to integrate Armenia into bilateral and regional organisations such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and economic agreements to cement its influence in the Caucasus,” the pair note.

“Armenia and Russia agreed on an unspecified new price for Russian natural gas supplied to Armenia, though several issues (including powerplant maintenance) remain unresolved in continuing negotiations on Russian energy supplies to Armenia.”

Meanwhile, Barros and Stepanenko demonstrate that “the Kremlin successfully leveraged Moldova’s energy dependency on Russia to limit the new Western-leaning Moldovan government’s European Union (EU) integration agenda and coerced Moldova into signing a new five-year gas supply deal with Russia on October 29”.

Despite the relative weakness of the Russian economy, it remains unclear whether the European Union and NATO will be able to overcome such a broad conflict environment marked by kinetic, non-kinetic and grey zone activities. From Poland through to the Balkans, coupled with economic and energy coercion, one may not be shocked if Europe makes more concessions in the crisis than it gains.