Foreign media digest for July 2, 2014

400 Russian mariners have arrived in Sen-Nazer to learn how to steer a ship, which Moscow receives despite Ukrainian crisis and the pressure on Paris.
Liberation:
Trying to neutralize critic, Paris assures that Russians will receive only “the carcass” without hi tech equipment. Moreover, according to one expert, there is an unwritten rule in the sphere of arms trade: the country who sells weapons another country, tomorrow can stand against because it knows this equipment so well,” the article writes.
journal.liberation.fr

Experts in foreign policy, parliamentarians from the Christian Democratic Union Andreas Schockenhoff and Karl-Georg Wellmann demands from Berlin to change its foreign policy course towards Russia. The further cooperation depends whether Russia changes its position towards Ukrainian crisis or not.
Tagesspiegel: “
Russia and Europe are experiencing a profound crisis,” the document, which was represented by MPs on Tuesday, states. “Our relationship with Russia is a big bunch of wreckage,” the deputy leader of CDU fraction Schockenhoff states. “Now Russia is not interested in the real cooperation with Europe,” politicians write. “Chancellor’s Office took part in preparing the document. The draft document was supported by CDU’s foreign experts. The era of illusion is at the end,” one of the document’s creator Wellmann thinks. According to the document, the climate of trust “will appear only if Russia considers Ukraine as equal.”
www.tagesspiegel.de

Kremlin has made conciliatory gestures, especially over the past week, that suggest it might be interested in a negotiating process that could lead to peace.
The Christian Science Monitor. “
Everybody wonders why Putin isn’t using troops [to back the rebels],” says Sergei Markov, director of the pro-Kremlin Institute of Political Studies and a frequent Kremlin adviser. “But Putin does understand how hard the war is, and wants to do what he can to preserve peace.” Alexei Makarkin, director of the independent Center for Political Technologies, says that Putin’s recent shift toward a negotiated solution suggests that he recognizes that Ukraine has slipped out of Russia’s sphere of influence forever, and that he must try to salvage what he can of Moscow’s badly shredded relationship with the West. “Putin’s attitude toward the West is hardly positive, but he understands that Russia lacks reserves” to stand up to Western pressures, says Mr. Makarkin. “Basically, Putin is treading a very fine line. He has to find ways to defend Russian interests without landing in a full-scale confrontation with the West.”
www.csmonitor.com

Putin has maneuvered himself, and Russia, into a position of Zugzwang—a chess term denoting a condition in which any possible move will worsen the player’s position.
World Affairs:
Over time, some combination of cold war, cold peace, and hot war will transform Ukraine into a South Korea and Taiwan, the edition thinks. Ukraine will have to live with the permanent threat of Russian aggression, but that threat could have a silver lining: compelling it to become a vigorous democracy with a strong economy and a strong army.
www.worldaffairsjournal.org

Agreement with the EU obliges Brussels to support Ukraine.
The New York Times:
The United States and Europe have been right, so far, to moderate their response and to give diplomacy every chance. Nobody wants a trade war. “But the agreement that Ukraine signed, along with Georgia and Moldova, is not only about trade. It’s also a commitment by the West to support them in their progress toward a higher standard of governance. Washington and Brussels have drawn lines and threatened serious sanctions, and the time has come to show they mean it,” NYT concludes.
www.nytimes.com