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Two regional signals ahead of 18 September 2023
Summary
A proposed three-way alliance and a call to extend a grain embargo showed pressure from two directions around Ukraine.
What were Ukraine's neighbours signalling in the days before 18 September 2023? Two reports, from 13 and 15 September, pointed in different directions.
On 15 September, Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko proposed a three-way alliance between Belarus, Russia and North Korea. He made the suggestion during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia. The proposal linked Minsk, Moscow and Pyongyang in a single framework, at a time when Russia's invasion of Ukraine was continuing.
Two days earlier, on 13 September, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called on the European Union to extend an embargo on imports of Ukrainian corn, wheat, sunflower and rapeseed. The call concerned trade in agricultural goods, a different matter from the alliance proposal, and it came from a neighbour of Ukraine.
Why the pairing matters
Taken together, the two episodes show that Ukraine's regional environment involved both a proposed alignment among states on the Russian side and a dispute over farm exports with a neighbouring EU member. Warsaw's appeal was addressed to the EU as a whole, not only to Ukraine. Lukashenko's idea was put directly to Putin.
