What is happening in the former USSR thirty years after the more or less peaceful disintegration of the Soviet empire? Not a week goes by without news of more or less hot conflicts within and between states often artificially constructed by Stalin.
A half-day war
Let's start with Central Asia, the subject of last night's article on the clashes at the Kyrgyz-Tajik border. We recall that the two countries are part of the CSTO, often presented by Russian President Putin as the Eurasian alternative to NATO. Well, until this morning it seemed that two member countries were on the verge of starting a war between them.
After an afternoon and a night of artillery shells, with evacuated villages and abundant use of artillery, other negotiations took place a few hours ago between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. This time it was attended by senior delegations, including the head of the State Committee on National Security of the Kyrgyz Republic and the governor of the Tajik region of Sughd. They decided to withdraw the troops to their original positions and to set up a bilateral commission to identify the causes of the conflict. We recall that ethnic conflicts, suspicions of espionage and unrecognized borders are still there to divide the two countries, evidently frightened by the idea of a real conflict.
There are a French, a German, an English and an Italian ...
While we wonder, rightly, if Italy can and should do something for Ukraine (read article), Berlin sent five thousand helmets to Kiev, a cadeau that the East Slavic republic took as a tragic mockery and for which it protested to the German ambassador. We remind you that in the coming weeks Italy, which officially has not sent weapons or personnel to Ukraine in recent weeks, will participate with the aircraft carrier Cavour to a French-led exercise, Clemanceau 22, along with the USS aircraft carriers Truman e Clemanceau, also in the waters of the Black Sea, off the Russian and Ukrainian coasts. Meanwhile, if you search for Ukraine and Italy on Google, you will find confirmation that for once, while the British are alarmed, it is Italy that follows the English maxim "business as usual": the media, not only Anglo-Saxons, have been speaking for days of Putin's "serendipity" in finding himself listened to, almost nothing, by almost all the large Italian companies. To tell the truth, they also speak of Londongrad and the weight of the enormous capital of Moscow's economic and political leadership in the United Kingdom.
War of spies and vandals
Meanwhile, Ukrainian intelligence has identified and arrested in Odessa a man suspected of serving the Russians in planning vandalism against iconic monuments and arson against NGO offices. Foreign agents are also sought for the shameful act of vandalism against the Holocaust monument in Dnipro. In the coming months it will be difficult to distinguish true and shameful acts of racism and anti-Semitism from provocations in both Russia and Ukraine.
From Kiev, President Zelenski confirms the impression, expressed in a recent article (link) that in reality the Russian troops on the eastern and southern borders of Ukraine have not increased - or at least not much - compared to the situation in April 2021.
Sasha dixit
We record a speech by the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko with various and colorful appeals. First of all, to the Lithuanians for God to forbid them from waging a war together with other Baltic states, which would mark the end of their independence and well-being. The reference to God on the lips of the Belarusian leader, a self-styled Orthodox atheist, is singular1. There was no lack of promise to return Ukraine to our Slavic brotherhood and to go to war, but only in the case of a direct aggression against Belarus or its ally Russia. His goodness, "Sasha" Lukashenko is certain that the major nuclear powers are trying to build new agreements to avoid World War III.
The latest news from other "stan"
In the rest of the former Soviet empire, the news is not really unexpected: once again, the Azerbaijani forces fired at the Armenian positions in Girimi Bazar, while in Kazakhstan the former father of the nation Nazarbayev left his free position as chief of the party in power (we would say single party in power ...), a post promptly occupied by President Tokayev.
1http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8021513.stm
Image: web
