Ukraine intensifies security measures, forbidding Russian men from entering

The Ukrainian government has taken its latest measures
to enhance national security during the martial law, announcing this morning
that it is forbidding the entry of Russian male citizens between the ages of 16
and 60, with exceptions such as though engage in humanitarian efforts or those
attending funerals. “These are measures that hinder the Russian Federation in
forming here private army units, which are truly representatives of the Russian
Armed Forces, and to not allow them to conduct operations that they tried to
conduct in 2014,” President Petro Poroshenko told a meeting of his top security
and defense officials, as reported by the presidential website.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin called for
closing the Russian-Ukrainian border entirely and establishing a biometric visa
regime with Russia during a Nov. 26 television talk show. “It won’t be any
other way,” he said. In his turn, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman called for
Ukrainian border officers to detain Russian navy ships in retaliation for
Russia’s detention of Ukrainian ships in an interview with the Deutsche Welle
news agency published on Nov. 30.

The Nov. 25 attack on Ukrainian navy ships confirms
Russia’s intentions to annex more Ukrainian territory, Poroshenko said in an
interview with the bild.de news site published on Nov. 29. “This is as in 2014:
Putin wants to attach (to Russia) one more part of Ukraine. He is acting the
same as then,” Poroshenko said.

Zenon Zawada: The
president is benefitting national security in taking advantage of the current
martial law to prevent the threat of Russian saboteurs, terrorists and other
violent actors from further destabilizing Ukraine. However, this is the
beginning of martial law affecting Ukrainians living beyond the ten regions
where it’s officially enacted, with more such measures – affecting all citizens
– being inevitable, in our view.

This also raises the question of how lifting martial
law can be justified if such necessary security measures are being introduced
(to prevent Russian-sponsored terrorism). We believe this action lends more
evidence to Poroshenko planning to extend martial law beyond Dec. 28, and even
possibly until the very elections themselves in late March. And Poroshenko may
resort to questionable measures to get an extension of martial law, which not only
enhances national security but works to his political advantage.

Russia does not want to annex any more Ukrainian
territory, a claim that Poroshenko likely made to raise fears. Ideally, Russia
would like to bring the entire Ukrainian territory back under its geopolitical
influence (as an independent entity). Given that is unlikely to happen, Russia
would settle for an outcome in which two or three separate nation-states are
carved out of the current Ukrainian state. To achieve its geopolitical goals, Russia
is prepared to wage this hybrid war against Ukraine for many years to come.