On the war in Ukraine: "sanctions are easy to impose and very difficult to lift.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict threatens to escalate into a large-scale war. Moscow shows on TV "tens of thousands of refugees from eastern Ukraine," although the Ukrainian army has not liberated a single settlement. Could what is happening today lead to a real war tomorrow? This is the question Turan poses to Farhad Mamedov, former director of the Presidential Center for Strategic Studies.

- What do you see when you watch Russian TV news programs?

- I see that the tension in Ukraine is rising day by day and hour by hour. A local war in Donbass could escalate into something bigger if the armed hostilities become widespread. If, a month earlier, talks about the Russian invasion of Ukraine were gradually localized by the confrontation in the Donbass, now it is the war in the Donbass that could escalate into large-scale hostilities along the entire border between Russia and Ukraine plus the border with Belarus. Steps have already been taken for this - Putin's accusations of "genocide" and the State Duma's appeal for recognition of the separatists.

- Shootings, there are people killed, and many refugees - these are the facts on the surface. But what is behind it, what events are we not seeing?

- This escalation around Donbass is only a part of the topics that Russia raised in the ultimatum last December. On all other points, Russia in principle received answers from the United States and NATO, as well as other Western countries. If the goal of the ultimatum was to suspend NATO expansion and not to deploy missiles, then it has been achieved. It was clear that the U.S. would not sign any "certificates" refusing NATO enlargement, while some NATO countries openly declared that they would not accept Ukraine as a member. In other words, there is progress on the issues that depend directly on the U.S. and EU countries.

The only thing that remained was the issue of Ukraine where much depends on Ukraine itself, and it did not work here. The pressure of the main partners on the government of Ukraine under the Minsk agreements in the Russian interpretation had no result. The impression is that the Kremlin does not believe the French and German leaders that they put effective pressure on Kiev. That is, there was confidence that the Ukrainian government was so submissive to the West that it would accept exhortations on the subject of the implementation of Minsk? It was not calculated that Zelensky might refuse?!

After all, as of today there is a result on the main and secondary issues of the ultimatum. Russia's concerns have all been understood, they have begun to reckon with the opinion, they have begun to fly in one by one for meetings. There has been no progress on Donbass for 7 years now, and it seemed to be quiet. And it is so principal that it is possible to jeopardize already existing results?!

- Let's predict. Will Putin stop if the West doesn't cheat and bring heavy sanctions down on him?

- It's like in a game of cards, you seem to be lucky, sometimes you bluff, the game goes on, you win and win pretty good and you have to stop... you have to stop in time! Otherwise, you can lose, a lot!

Even if there is a local war, sanctions will follow which can throw off the possibility of becoming a third player at the global level, after the United States and China.

The West is acting slyly by not announcing the scale of sanctions and, by making them contingent on the scale of escalation.

It is already clear that there will be no disconnection from SWIFT now, but it remains on the agenda. This, by the way, is a chance for Russia to stop at some stage, otherwise the flywheel of processes will be launched and then there will be no turning back, the point of no return will be passed.  Sanctions are easy to apply and very difficult to cancel. This is why the West is so scrupulous about applying them. If we apply sanctions in full, then Russia will have no deterrent reasons to solve other problems, in other geographies.

Today, the processes are moving into the phase of the game of nerves, when there are opportunities to resolve issues by political and diplomatic means. And if you do not stop in time, then there will be no more opportunities.-0-