U.S. President Barrack Obama and Russian President Vladmir Putin have not had the most cordial of relationships in the past few years. Their relationship was particularly strained after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in 2014 when Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was impeached. The following is an excerpt of a report by the BBC at the time detailing the events.
“Opponents accuse him (President Viktor Yanukovych) of having enriched himself, his family and cronies while in power. A protest against his decision to abandon a far-reaching European Union partnership deal in November 2013 morphed into a huge – and violent – campaign to push him from power.
But it was the deaths of at least 88 people, many of them protesters shot dead by uniformed snipers in 48 hours of bloodshed, that ultimately brought him down. The killings sent shockwaves around the world. Under EU pressure he signed a deal to transfer powers to parliament and hold early elections. But within hours he had fled the capital and his administration had crumbled.”
What followed were moves by the Kremlin to maintain influence in Ukraine by sending troops there to “contain the situation.” This was seen by the U.S. as a violation of the country’s sovereignty. In the end, Russia annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine, which had a strong allegiance to Russia and was also of particular strategic military importance. The following is a detailed explanation of this.
“Russia’s capacity to reach the sea is limited by geography, so ports in the north and south seas, leading to larger waters, are crucial.
Sevastopol is a strategically important base for Russia’s naval fleet, in addition to being Russia’s only warm water base. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a 1997 treaty with Ukraine allowed Russia to keep its Black Sea Fleet pretty much intact (with 15,000 personnel currently stationed) and lease the base at Sevastopol (extended to expire in 2042).”
This is as reported by the Guardian . That said, what followed was a barrage of sanctions by both the European Union and the United States. The sanctions, which were mainly financial, hurt the Russian economy to a great extent. The following is an excerpt of a report by OSW detailing this.
“They have significantly undermined the opportunities which Russian companies have to attract foreign capital, thus contributing to the deterioration of their financial condition (which is particularly prominent in the case of energy firms subject to sanctions). Therefore, Russian businesses need more support from the state. However, this support is becoming more difficult due to the dramatic fall in oil prices – revenues from oil exports are the main source of budget revenue.”
That said, the situation is likely to change at least on the U.S. side once Donald Trump is sworn in as president of the United States. The billionaire is said to have warm relations with Russian oligarchs and the Kremlin and presently, intelligence agencies in the United States point to the involvement of Russia in helping Donald Trump become president. This was apparently by hacking into Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers and releasing emails that may have hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign efforts.
President Obama has addressed the issue and come out to say that the United States will retaliate for these actions. Practically, there is very little he can do to effectively punish the Russians in the long term if indeed these allegations are true. This is because firstly, he has only one month in office, and he can’t engage in all out cyber warfare with the Russians as they may have significantly less to lose. Donald Trump is also likely to overturn some of the effective sanctions against the Russians once he gets into power.
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