According to the prime minister, “From agriculture in Ukraine to the tech sector in Belarus – there is a huge amount of potential in the Eastern neighborhood that we should nurture and develop.” This is nothing else but a thinly veiled call for Eastern Partnership non-EU members to shift from Russia to the EU. “But we must also be open-eyed to the actions of hostile states like Russia which threaten this potential and attempt to tear our collective strength apart,” she continued expressly using the word “hostile”. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more restrained, saying the EU’s partnership with the six states was “very important for our own security.” She did not mention Russia specifically but the meaning was clear. By and large, she meant the same thing Theresa May said.

It’s not words only. Theresa May found it important to emphasize that the UK is about to leave the EU but not Europe and remains unconditionally committed to maintaining European security. The UK plans to spend £100 million over five years to counter what it calls a Russian “disinformation” campaign in what is called the “Eastern Neighborhood.”

The PM’s personal campaign against Moscow is seemingly gaining pace. Addressing the Lord Mayor's Banquet at London's Guildhall on Nov.13, Theresa May launched a crusade against Russia. She called Moscow a “threat to international security” and blamed it for provoking “dangerous and unpredictable” conflicts, “meddling in elections,” hacking the Danish Ministry of Defence and the Bundestag, undermining free societies, and carrying out “cyber espionage and disruption.”

At the same time, none of non-EU Eastern Partnership members was given a clear signal that they could one day join the EU. There is no appetite in the EU for eastward expansion. “This is not an enlargement or accession summit,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker explained.

It’s worth noting that Russian officials never said that the UK or the EU was considered as a hostile state or organization despite the anti-Russia policy, including launching the sanctions war. In the given case, it’s not so important what the PM said but rather who it was destined for.

The Eastern Partnership is an EU program aimed at gradual integration of the six states of the post-Soviet space. Armenia and Belarus are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union and other integration projects with Russia’s participation. Five states (except Georgia) are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Ukraine does not take part in the CIS activities but it has not formally withdrawn from the organization. Belarus is a part of the commonwealth (the Union State) with Russia. In practice, it means that Great Britain spoke on behalf of Moscow’s allies calling Russia a hostile state! Is it not an example of outright political pressure? She actually states that “agriculture in Ukraine” and “the tech sector in Belarus” are threatened by Moscow and need West’s protection! It’s a well-known and undeniable fact that the Belarusian industry would have collapsed a long time ago without orders coming from Russia.

Any time a Russian official expresses doubt about the benefits some EU states get from the EU membership, a ballyhoo is raised about Moscow’s attempts to undermine European unity. But the apparently hostile statements of Theresa May aimed at igniting anti-Russian sentiments are perceived as something normal by EU leadership and bureaucrats.

Is it not strange that the statements in the name of the “United Europe” are made by the leader of the country, which is leaving the EU? The UK is a lame duck; it did not represent anybody at the summit but itself. It’s clear that the PM is dancing to Washington’s tune. The statements create certain environment on the eve of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s visit to Moscow. As the PM sees it, the head of Foreign Office is going to making a trip to the hostile state to talk with the enemy.

Speaking about EaP’s non-EU members on the eve of the summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “Clearly, the relationship with Russia plays a pivotal role for all those countries. I feel really very happy for this opportunity to conduct a discussion today to know more about the situation in those countries, and I am hopeful that the summit will be a success.” The statements made by her British counterpart demonstrated that the chances of EaP’s success are zilch, the same as the chances of the six non-EU states to become full-fledged members of the bloc. But the PM’s words confirm the well-known fact – the real goal of EaP is to deprive Russia of the status of the priority partner of at least some of the above-mentioned six countries. The EaP is an instrument to make post-Soviet states distance themselves from Moscow and receive nothing in return. Theresa May made the veils fall, with the truth coming out.

Mr. Wiegand regularly visits Minks, Erevan, Kiev and Chisinau where he always confidently speaks in the name of the whole European Union starting with the words «The view of the European Union is…» Actually he holds a rather modest position but it is important enough to give him authority to speak on the part of the European Union. In January 2013 he met Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat to say Moldova met all the conditions to become the first participant of the Eastern Partnership to conclude an association agreement with the EU. That is exactly what took place 10 months after at the Vilnius summit. In May 2014 Gunnar Wiegand was decorated with the «Order of Honor» (Ordinul de Onoare) by the President of the Republic of Moldova Nicolae Timofti. This distinction is conferred to the European officials in sign of «high appreciation for special merits to foster the process of integration of the Republic of Moldova in European structures». Georgia also signed an association agreement at the summit. The both documents were initialled by Wiegand to be later signed by Catherine Ashton, then High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. 

In January 2014 Gunnar Wiegand and Štefan Füle, the European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, held talks with then Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych. Those days a coup was being cooked up in Kiev but Yanukovych had no idea what was in store for him. After the talks the crisis in Ukraine began to unwind and Wiegand concentrated his efforts on other countries. With Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko he talked «about not economic only but also political cooperation». He was a co-chairman of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee presiding over its meetings. Mr. Wiegand led the EU team at the talks with Kazakhstan and headed the EU delegation at the EU-Uzbekistan Cooperation Committee meeting in Tashkent. He was responsible for the relations with six states of post-Soviet space (Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Belarus). His activities included working out and presenting proposals stated in the form of ultimatum on signing association and free trade agreements with the European Union which exclude the economic integration with Russia. 

Gunnar Wiegand is well prepared for the job. He has much greater foreign policy experience as compared with his current superior – Federica Mogherini, the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy since November 1, 2014. After a period of service in the Air Force he studied law at the Universities of Bonn and Hamburg. He also has a Master of Arts in International Relations from the John Hopkins University the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Bologna, Italy and Washington, D.C., the John Hopkins University. He has been holding different foreign policy related positions for a quarter of century, including project manager and team leader of TACIS («Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States») programs, Head of Unit for Relations with the United States and Canada, he has experience of dealing with Russia, including the Northern Dimension program (a joint dialogue and cooperation policy between EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland) and nuclear safety and security issues. 

Gunnar Wiegand has been heading the European External Action Service (EEAS) Director for Russia, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, Regional Cooperation and OSCE for the recent 8 years. 41-year-old Federica Mogherini lacks diplomatic experience. Literally the next day after her election as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy she gave a stunning interview to Italian Corriere Della Serra. For instance, she made such peculiar affirmations as: «Russia at this moment is no longer a strategic partner», «Putin has never respected pledges», «He wasted the opportunity to turn things round by using his influence with the separatists after the Malaysian airliner was shot down» and «there is no alternative to diplomacy and sanctions are one of the instruments available to that policy». Some people made conjectures that the statements were blue-penciled by experienced Wiegand. 

Then the Mogherini statements became even tougher. On September 3, 2014 she said «Things on the ground are getting more and more dramatic. We speak of an aggression, and I think sanctions are part of a political strategy». «I think that the EU is obliged to exert all efforts to prevent the creation of a land corridor Between the Crimea and the rest of Russia», the official said speaking at the hearings in the European Parliament Committee on international Affairs on October 7.

This January Federica Mogherini appointed Mr. Alain Le Roy as the new Secretary General of the European External Action Service. He was in charge of the Union for the Mediterranean Initiative since September 2007 till the end of June 2008. Back then the idea was successfully torpedoed by Berlin as Angela Merkel did not like the prospect of creating a club of nations with France as the only leader. But today the Russia-EU relationship is viewed through the prism of the events in Ukraine. Perhaps quite a different experience determined the choice of candidate for the position. In the spring of 2011 Western powers were heavily involved in the combat actions against Libya. Those days Alain Le Roy was Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations. He was responsible for diplomatic cover of French intervention into Côte d'Ivoire, a former colony of France, to overthrow the legitimate President Laurent Gbagbo. The operation was conducted under the UN cover of «UN peacekeeping mission». In his remarks on the Cote D’Ivoire events well-known Russian expert on international law Alexander Mezyaev wrote, «Colonial seizures of land and coups staged by foreign military have always contradicted international law. The aggressor could not count on the United Nations Security Council support – the main international body responsible for international peace and security. The operations had been conducted without UN approval like criminal actions. Today the situation has drastically changed. The aggressions take place on the basis on international law. The regress is breathtakingly rapid. The aggression against Libya was conducted with the UN approval while the aggression against Cote D’Ivoir was implemented by the United Nations Organization itself». 

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Today the time is propitious to remember the hackneyed question asked for the first time by Henry Kissinger «Who do I call if I want to call Europe?» Indeed, who should one call to make clear the Brussels’s goals as the EU whips up its anti-Russia rhetoric? Is it Federica Mogherini who still does not know well enough her way around as she took over the present EU position recently and who makes melodramatic statements? For instance, «We will never recognize change of borders by force. Not now, not in this century, not in this millennium. We even do not expect such a possibility», she announced at the European Parliament in Strasbourg while participating in the debate on Ukraine. Or should one call the newly appointed Alain Le Roy who acts as a special advisor to Federica Mogherini till he takes office as the new Secretary General of the EEAS on March 1? Or is it Gunnar Wiegand who keeps on repeating that Russia illegally annexed Crimea and Sebastopol and destabilized the situation in the eastern Ukraine? 

No fruitful dialogue between Russia and the EU is possible until Europe sees the things the same way as the above mentioned officials do. The events in Ukraine are the result of systematic international crisis provoked by a number of factors, like, for instance, the NATO expansion to the East which destabilizes international security, the deployment of missile defense elements in Europe posing a threat to Russia and the aggressive promotion of Eastern Partnership program by the European Union. To do away with these factors is tantamount to finding a solution to the crisis. There is no other way to do it. 

GUAM was conceived as a counterweight to the CIS and the CSTO. The organization was officially born in October 1997 in Strasbourg during a summit of the Council of Europe. The long-term goal set by the project’s Western ideologists was to nip any attempts to integrate the post-Soviet states in the bud. 

Remember that this was preceded by the signing of the Treaty on the Union between Belarus and Russia by the two countries' presidents in Moscow on April 2, 1997. Ever since then, April 2 is celebrated as the Day of Unification of the Peoples of Belarus and Russia. Under this treaty, the decision was made to create a politically and economically integrated community in order to unite the potential of the two states. 

The GUAM bloc arose in response to the birth of the Union of Belarus and Russia.  In 1999 at a NATO summit in Washington, Uzbekistan joined GUAM, after which the organization was renamed GUUAM. However, in 2005 at a summit in Chisinau, Uzbekistan left the organization «due to its excessive politicization» and «the non-implementation of the economic component». In 2006 at the Kiev GUAM summit the organization was renamed the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development. On May 24, 2006 Romania stated its intention to join GUAM.

From 2007 to 2011 the leaders of GUAM member countries held several meetings; however, these had no results. GUAM never became a military organization which could carry out its declared goals of protecting the transit of oil and gas from the Caspian region to Western markets or participating in the resolution of conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The GUAM project failed as a first attempt to create a cordon sanitaire on the western borders of Russia. After Georgia's defeat in the war of 2008, GUAM essentially ceased to exist, and in early 2010 Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovich stated that GUAM's activities were no longer relevant. This marked the end of the bloc.

However, in 2008, not long before Georgia's August attack on South Ossetia, the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden put forward the Eastern Partnership initiative. The idea was presented to the EU Council on May 26, 2008 as a European Union project for developing integration relations between the EU and six former Soviet republics: Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Belarus.  On May 7, 2009 an inaugural summit was held in Prague at which a declaration on Eastern Partnership issues was adopted. 

Thus, after the failure of the first attempt to fence Russia off with a cordon sanitaire, a second, more substantial attempt immediately followed; even Belarus, Russia's partner in the Union State, formally joined the project, although it later quickly lost interest. 

On September 3, 2013 during a meeting between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Armenia's accession to the Customs Union was announced; and on November 21 the government of Ukraine announced that the process of Ukraine's signing of an association agreement with the EU has been suspended. Dissatisfaction with the Eastern Partnership program is growing in Azerbaijan as well. In late October 2013 a group of Azerbaijani journalists and cultural figures urged Ilham Aliyev to abandon participation in the program.  The initiators cite Brussels' haughtiness toward Azerbaijan and the EU's double standards on the issue of Karabakh as the motivation for their proposal.  

Thus the question arises: might not this next anti-Russian project known as the Eastern Partnership meet with the same fate as its predecessor, the failed GUAM bloc? And yet projects with no economic, cultural or historical foundation based solely on the logic of creating a belt of limitrophe states in Europe to separate Russia from the western part of the European continent are apparently destined to arise regularly in the minds of Western politicians. 

In their time Poland and Sweden with the assistance of the US initiated the “Eastern partnership” program. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Karl Bildt said the “Eastern partnership” as a component of the European integration was a vivid expression of solidarity and the evidence that the EU takes long term commitments regarding the countries of South Caucasus According to him, that the program places “Eastern partners” as top priority on the EU agenda.

Recent intensive foreign policy activities of Nicolas Sarkozy, who confirmed his reputation of pro-American activist in Libya, show that after Middle East the US and its allies are seriously considering the division of post Soviet territories. The tasks Sarkozy is going to solve during his trip in the Caucasus are being interpreted mainly in anti-Russian way…

Preparations for “Eastern partnership” summit in Warsaw coincided with intensification of activities of European agencies aimed at the settlement of regional conflicts in particular the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In the result of behind-the-scene competition in European political circles Philippe Lefort was appointed as European Union Special Representative ( EUSR) for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia. In 2004-2007, Lefort was France’s ambassador in Georgia and later he headed continental Europe department in the French Foreign Ministry. The new representative who knew the situation (including the most sensitive episodes of the regional policy) quite well began to work hard visiting Baku, Yerevan, Tbilisi and Moscow. Besides the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Philip Lefort focuses on the situation in the countries, which neighbor Georgia – the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

According to recent reports, Nicolas Sarkozy may take over D. Medvedev as the mediator within Minsk group of OSCE. The reason which is being named is lack of results at the meeting in Kazan. In early September France’s Total announced that the Asheron field in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea may have large reserves of natural gas and condensate. If this information is confirmed it will increase the chances of the Nabucco gas pipeline project. As we see, Paris’ intention to become an influential player in Caucasus is confirmed by recent events in diplomacy and also in energy sector.

Now European diplomats are working to warm up the expectations. For example, they announced that Yerevan and Brussels will soon sign an agreement on simplification of visa regime and establishment of free trade zone. It implies that more intensive partnership with the EU would make Armenia economically more independent from Russia.

The EU is also pushing the Armenian government and the opposition to dialogue. Experts note, that such a “dialogue” when both sides listen attentively to the arguments of Western partners should also help to weaken Russia’s influence on Armenia.

Eyeing the Eastern partnership summit, the representatives of Azeri non-governmental organizations have prepared proposals on the development of civil society. Armenian and Georgian NGOs also hope for Western support in their dialogues with national governments. But it would be at least naïve to think that Western political protectors will act in Caucasus exclusively in the interests of local nations.

The last 20 years show that West’s reclaiming of post-Soviet territories was accompanied by social and economic degradation in those countries except for prosperity of certain elite groups.

American and European initiatives pursue certain profits. Head of the Center for European studies at the Yerevan State University Arthur Kazinyan points to the fact that only in May high ranking EU officials made 5-6 visits to Armenia: “First of all this happened because the EU officially included the South Corridor program in its plans. The South Corridor project envisages creation of a new land transportation route between East and West. It turned out that Russian and Ukrainian transits are no more reliable and the EU has to think how to diversify energy sector. The route via South Caucasus is regarded as most optimal one”.

Europeans’ interests in the region have always been linked with so called “energy security”, “alternative” pipelines and corridors are regarded as a tool to hamper integration of post soviet states. West wants not only to expand its political influence on post-Soviet territories but also to gain control over all significant economic projects in the countries of the former USSR. Expansion is under way in several directions: political projects of the US and their allies are supported by NATO military machine, stubborn leaders or simply those who failed to look about in time are offered to think about fates of Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubаrak, Muammar Gaddafi…. By taking relatively small efforts West wins new positions in strategically important regions, which in their turn became strongholds for further expansion. “Further” means Russia but first of all Iran, which is inevitably next on the list after Libya and Syria. Drying out Lake Urmia between eastern Iran and western Azerbaijan is used as an excuse for mass protests of Azeri people. These protests are presented as national movement with demands of change of power in Iran…

At the same time any action leads to counteraction. Trying to gain control over deeper districts of Eurasia the Euro-Atlantic West will inevitably face resistance of Russia and other countries, which are beginning to protect their interest more firmly and decisively on the global political arena.