The International Report
May 24th, 2022
Russian Civil War ‘Ceasefire’ Uncertain as Talks Begin
VIENNA, AUSTRIA - While the ceasefire across northwestern Russia between separatist Nationalist Russian Union (NRS) forces and the rest of the Federation has held for just over two weeks now, the tension between each couldn't be overstated as talks began today at the United Nations Offices in Vienna.
Photo by Renee Wells, TIR 2022
What started last April as a Russian military intervention in Finland with ostensibly legal precedent engineered into the treaty, at a time when Finland was all but required to enable Russian industrial investment in the country by way of natural gas exploration had quickly deteriorated into a full-scale military crisis that threatened to drag the entirety of the European Union (EU) and several North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) member states into war across northern Europe and Russia. The United States deployed troops in early May of 2021 in order to enable EU-led peacekeepers to restore order and stability to Finland amid incidents of Russian military aggression, and eventually the shootdown of American Airlines Flight 270, a passenger jet that was part of a series of commercially chartered evacuation flights from Helsinki to Chicago in April of 2021. Soon thereafter, the Russian military formed a joint peacekeeping and assistance coalition, deployed as part of the Northern Assistance Force Peacekeeping Initiative. However, this initiative was a resounding failure, instead serving as the vehicle from which a Russian rebellion sprung from & enabled the further deployment of Russian military forces into Finland.
The emergence of an internal power struggle within the United Russia party of the Gosduma led to a soft coup de tat attempt by a coordinated effort of Russian political and military leaders, casting the briefly focused "Russo-Finnish War" into the middle of a Russian civil conflict. The rebellion, calling themselves the One Russia Nationalist Movement, and later known as the Nationalist Russian Union (NRS, as abbreviated in Cyrillic) began with the oblasts of Murmansk, Pskov, Novgorod, and Arkhangelsk oblasts, as well as the Republic of Karelia, and later included the Sverdlovsk oblast. The NRS was initially headed by Yevgeny Lyutov, a well-known pro-nationalist powerhouse in the Gosduma, and a retired colonel in the Russian military. However, Lyutov was apprehended in September of 2021 by Russian loyalist authorities and awaits trial for capital crimes, including treason. Now-former Russian Colonel-General Artur Bokaryov, who initially served as the military commander of the NRU, now maintains leadership of the fractured remnant military forces of the NRU, who remain scattered across the Karelia and Sverdlovsk regions of northwestern Russia.
Neither the NRU's Bokaryov nor Russia's President Svetla Basuda were present themselves in Vienna as talks began, as each leader has been quoted on several occasions as holding a particularly low opinion of one another as a result of being on opposite ends of the civil conflict within their country. "The judgment of the Russian people will grant traitors like Artur Bokaryov the perdition they deserve- there will be no mercy for crimes he and the radicals that follow men like him have committed against the State and the world over." President Basuda was quoted back last October as Bokaryov's succession to lead the NRU in its entirety was announced.
The international community watches with equal parts interest and concern as the once great superpower attempts to head off its continued decline through these crucial negotiations, however, if the current atmosphere here at the Vienna International Centre after the first day is any indication of progress, the road to an amicable peace is likely to be both long and tumultuous.
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