Posts tagged : "Russia"

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: War in Ukraine rages on nine months after Russia initiated a full-scale invasion of its neighbouring country. The world has been shocked by the unfolding scenes of brutality, pillaging of towns and cities, mass burials, hospitals being shelled, and civilian infrastructure being knocked out by drones and missiles. As the world celebrated the New Year, on social media Ukrainians were posting photos of their cities eclipsed in darkness as their access to electricity shrinks daily. Damages incurred by Ukraine as a result of the war can amount to $700 billion by the end of the year, and the civilians are expected to live with power outages through mid-March. Now, amid a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Institute: Iran and Russia, two isolated fossil fuel giants suffering under U.S. sanctions, are rapidly trying to develop new areas of bilateral cooperation in order to make up for their pariah statuses. But rather than being spurred by shared values or a history of warm ties, the Tehran-Moscow bond is incentivized by their shared enmities as well as short-term calculations about their present standing in the world. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which fast-tracked Moscow’s progressive estrangement from the West, drove Russia and the Islamic Republic to solidify their connections in the face of the United States’ apparent determination to cement their isolation. From reports that Iran...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: While the United States and its allies cobble together package after package of punitive measures on Russia to drive home that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adventurism in Ukraine will have grave consequences for his country and catapult it into global isolation, and as the humanitarian crisis precipitated by the blitzkrieg is consuming resources and shifting global consciousness, the eccentricity with which Russia’s southern Caspian Sea neighbor and ally Iran has responded to the crisis has mostly remained unnoticed. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was one of the first world leaders to pick up the phone and call Putin to pledge allegiance as soon as the news of the war flashed over TV...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: The atrocities in Bucha, Mariupol, and other Ukrainian cities have taken the severity of Russia’s war in Ukraine to a whole new level. Graphic footage emerging of bullet-riddled bodies with tied hands, charred corpses piled together dumped in the streets, and buildings and cars blown to pieces have exposed how an apparently unquenchable thirst for power and domination can be boundless. In response, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Sweden, Spain, the United States and a handful of other countries expelled more than 325 Russian diplomats from Moscow’s missions. At the same time, the sanctions machinery of the United States and European Union is in full swing, and Russia is being targeted by...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: North Macedonia suddenly finds itself on the front lines of Russia’s war on Ukraine. As the newest member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), joining in March 2020, the small Balkan nation of 1.8 million has boldly censured and joined sanctions on Moscow – despite being heavily reliant on Russian energy supplies. President Stevo Pendarovski, in power since May 2019, is now bidding to bring North Macedonia into the European Union (EU), which certain EU members including Greece and Bulgaria have opposed. A recent International Republican Institute poll showed that 79% of the North Macedonian public favors EU membership, which would pull the new country closer to the West and further...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Russia’s blitzkrieg on Ukraine and endgame talks to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iran nuclear pact have become increasingly interlocked in an emerging new geopolitical order. But hopes that a new nuclear deal will allow Iran to quickly replace Russian energy supplies to the West are likely premature for a multitude of reasons. In remarks last weekend, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked the US for written guarantees that the JCPOA’s revival be made contingent on Russia being allowed to maintain trade and economic ties with Iran exempt from US sanctions over its Ukraine invasion. Many analysts interpreted the request, made after months of negotiations and with...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the largest military attack on the European continent since World War II, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was arguably the West’s most urgent diplomatic priority. Representatives from Iran and six world powers have in recent weeks shuttled to Vienna to regenerate the 2015 nuclear deal that was shattered when then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the pact and reinstated punishing sanctions against Tehran in 2018. Now, the Tehran hardliners who once berated the deal largely because it was negotiated by the moderate president Hassan Rouhani are in charge of resurrecting the pact under the ultra-conservative Ebrahim...