Andreas Umland on Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference

The 54th Munich Security Conference, held in Germany last week, has become the latest channel for discussions on the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

On the sidelines of the conference, officials from Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia held a four-way meeting on ceasefire violations in the Donbas, while President Petro Poroshenko took to the stage to call for Russian cooperation with proposed plans to deploy UN Peacekeepers to the occupied east.

Poroshenko made scathing remarks about Russia’s continued aggression on Ukrainian territory, stating that that the hybrid war waged by Russia was “gradually turning into a full-fledged World Hybrid War.”

Kurt Volker, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, said Russia’s interference in Ukraine appears to be backfiring.

He said not only has Moscow’s meddling shaped Ukraine into a more unified and Western-oriented country, it has also brought Russia no benefits on an international scale.

“So if you’re not getting anything out of it and if you’re also paying a very high price, which is sanctions from the US, sanctions from the European Union, no effective US relationship, no effective EU relationship...the only benefit of this is for Putin domestically,” Volker said.

“Beyond that, it’s a huge negative and it doesn’t produce any good.”

In the wake of the conference, Hromadske sat down with Andreas Umland, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, to discuss the expected outcome of these discussions for Ukraine.

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Видео Andreas Umland on Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference канала Hromadske International