In late June, Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu surprised Western observers when he announced the removal of 50 top naval officers, including both the commander of the Baltic Fleet and his chief of staff, for "dereliction of duty" and "distortion of the real state of things." Alexey Arbatov, a member of the research council of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded to the news with a cautionary note for Russian President Vladimir Putin: "NATO deploys a battalion, we respond by deploying an army. If we want to make Sweden and Finland join NATO, there is no better way to do it."
Foreign Policy: The Ukrainian state treaty – an offer Putin can’t refuse
Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko (C) gestures next to Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko as they meet in the Belarusian capital Minsk on August 26, 2014.
