Al-Manar Website correspondent to Moscow interviewed the Russian political analyst and expert, Sergey Mikheyev, about the situation in Ukraine and Crimea and the strained US-Russia relations.
Ahmad Hajali
Al-Manar Website correspondent to Moscow interviewed the Russian political analyst and expert, Sergey Mikheyev, about the situation in Ukraine and Crimea and the strained US-Russia relations.
Regarding Crimea, Mikheyev pointed at two important issues related to its annexation to Russia. The first is the paper deal which can be completed in one or two weeks or within a maximum period of one month, while the full respect may take not less than one or two years.
He considered the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation will no doubt stop the fighters' transit across the Crimea a well as the work of extremist organizations in the peninsula.
"Crimea was not the only channel to send extremists to Syria. Other channels exist in other places, but cutting this channel will lead to a positive outcome, particularly in Syria," the Russian analyst told Al-Manar Website.
Speaking on the future of the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, Mikheyev voiced beliefs that it is related to the way adopted by the new power in Kiev.
"If the new authorities try to deal violently with those areas and seek to solve problems with violence, and that's what we hear from Kiev until now, it's only natural that the civil conflict in Ukraine exacerbates. This may lead to division and to other negative consequences," he said.
"The solution is to establish a federation based on the current Ukrainian structure, but unfortunately in Kiev they don't want to hear anything about this subject until now," he added.
Touching on the U.S. sanctions against Russia, Mikheyev stressed that the US administration is acting in a way which is not only offensive to Russia, but will also drag the European Union into the same quagmire, referring to the US demand that EU funds the whole process, i.e. it pays the price of their operation which will weaken its position.
"The U.S. also wants to weaken key exporters to Russia's such as Germany, Italy and other European countries, in parallel to strengthening the role of their allies such as Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and the Baltic region," he stated.
The Russian expert indicated that the U.S. repeatedly creates the lines of confrontation between Russia and Europe because if they agreed upon a joint security zone, that would weaken the U.S. role in Europe radically.
"So they need a conflict to strengthen their presence in that region," Mikheyev ended up saying.
