Ukraine and Belarus potential sources for a United States-Russia confrontation

Geopolitical Futures claims that one of its top priorities is to know what is coming and ensure its subscribers are informed on important issues before they hit the mainstream. 

Till lately, major news outlets were reporting that Russia was amassing troops at its border with Ukraine; an important buffer country, in an effort to reclaim former Soviet Union territory.

 Lately, Geopolitical Futures has shared an excerpt of that original forecast with the readers. The highlights are:

Ukraine and Belarus are the two places with the potential for a US-Russia confrontation. Ukraine is at risk of falling apart. Russian influence in Belarus will threaten Poland.

Ukraine is caught in the crossfire of the United States, the European Union and Russia. Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream are expected to be completed in 2019. These pipelines, which connect Russia’s supply of natural gas to the European Union and Turkey, circumvent traditional and lucrative natural gas transit routes through Ukraine, giving Moscow further leverage over the government in Kiev.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine is frozen but still volatile, and it is unclear whether Ukraine can govern what is left of its territory. Russia is better prepared for intervention there than the West is, but Moscow is betting that Ukraine’s internal dysfunctions will eventually bring much of the country, if not the government itself, back into its orbit.

At the same time, Ukraine is preparing for a presidential election, scheduled for March. Polls show no clear frontrunner, there’s a real chance the political conflict that follows will entangle outside powers, just as it did after the 2014 elections.

Belarus is also concerning. For years, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has juggled relations with the West and Russia, leaning further east or west as necessity dictates. Right now, he is engaging more with the West, much to the chagrin of Russia, which is concerned about increased US military presence in Poland and Romania. Lukashenko has intimated that if a permanent US military base is installed in Poland, Minsk and Moscow may have to respond together. He has insisted that Russian troops will not be stationed in Belarus.

In Belarus, as in Ukraine, Geopolitical Futures does not expect the situation to come apart at the seams – but the competitive forces on both sides are creating tremendous pressure, which, in the shorter term, makes precise developments unpredictable.