EU blacklist sheds light on Putin's rag-tag Ukraine army

BRUSSELS - The latest EU blacklist on Russia sheds light on Western intelligence on the command structures, composition, and territorial ambitions of Vladimir Putin i’s east Ukraine forces.

The list, published on Friday (25 July), imposes a travel ban and asset freeze on 15 people and 18 entities.

Five of them sit on the Russian leader’s Security Council: Mikhail Fradkov (also Putin’s spy chief); Nikolai Patrushev; Aleksandr Bortnikov; Rashid Nurgaliev; and Boris Gryzlov.

Another listed man, Sergei Beseda, runs an intelligence branch responsible for operations in Ukraine. Ramzan Kadyrov, also under the new ban, is a pro-Putin warlord in Chechnya.

The security chiefs are said to have shaped “the policy of the Russian government threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.

Beseda and Kadyrov are said to be involved at an operational level. The sanctions note cites the fact that Kadyrov “on 1 June 2014 … expressed his readiness to send 74,000 Chechen volunteers to Ukraine if requested to do so”.

The rest of the individuals are rebel leaders in Ukraine.

Nine of the 18 entities on the EU list, including the Donetsk republic, are either self-proclaimed countries or irregular battle groups.

If the orders come from the Kremlin, such as Fradkov or Beseda, they have a large variety of fighters under their command.

The “Army of the Southeast”, based in Lugansk, east Ukraine, and the “Vostock Battalion”, which originated in Chechnya, are described as “the most important” separatist units.

The “Great Don Army” or “Cossack National Guard” is formed from an old Russian warrior caste - the Cossacks.

The “Sobol”, based in Crimea, is said to be a “radical paramilitary organisation” which is “responsible for training separatists to fight against the Ukrainian government forces”. The “Lugansk Guard” is called a “self-defence militia” which also trains other fighters.

The nine firms listed on Friday are all Crimean companies snatched by Russia following its annexation in March.

But the EU has threatened to target firms in Russia proper in another round of sanctions due on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the name of one of the separatist entities - the Federal State of Novorossiya - holds a clue to what might come next.

Novorossiya

“Novorossiya” is a concept expounded by Putin in his Crimea annexation speech - a claim that east Ukraine, but also south Ukraine, all the way around the Black Sea coast to Transniestria (a Russian-controlled separatist entity in Moldova) is part of Russia in the same, ancestral, way that Crimea is part of Russia.

Some EU diplomats had hopes that MH17 would see Putin end his Ukraine adventure for shame.

But others fear that fighting will flare up in late August, when international monitors leave, in a bid to make Novorossiya into a fact on the ground.

For his part, Martin Dempsey, the chief of the US armed forces, also believes the conflict will get worse.

He told the Aspen Security Forum, an event in the US, on Friday: “They [the Russian leadership] are clearly on a path to assert themselves differently, not just in eastern Europe, but in Europe in the main and toward the United States”.

He noted that Putin wants to “redress grievances that were burdened upon Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union … and he’s very aggressive about it, and he’s got a playbook that has worked for him now two or three times. And he will continue to [use it]”.

He added that his own contacts in the Russian military are themselves wary of Putin’s plans.

“I think that the Russian military is probably reluctant - you know, this is risky for me to say this, and 10 of them could end up in a gulag [a Russian penal colony] tomorrow - but I think that the Russian military and its leaders that I know are probably somewhat reluctant participants in this form of warfare.”