THE UKRAINE WAR
NATO: TIRED OF BACKING AN ENDLESS WAR?
Saro Thiruppathy discusses NATO’s fatigue, contrary claims in the media about Russia’s demands and the lack of sincerity between the parties
However earnestly NATO tries to portray itself as Ukraine’s saviour from Russian aggression, a Reuters video posted on 1 March last year told a different story. It’s believed that the recording was done on 22 February 2022 when French President Emmanuel Macron visited Moscow – that was two days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The video showed Russian President Vladimir Putin warning Ukraine against joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and warning that NATO membership could make nuclear conflict a much greater possibility.
Putin challenged: “Do you understand that if Ukraine joins NATO and attempts to bring Crimea back by military means, the European countries will be automatically pulled into a conflict with Russia?”
He said this because Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s principle of collective defence considers an attack against one member of the group to be an offensive against them all. And in the event of a false flag operation, this could constitute an existential threat to Russia.
Even as far back as December 2021, the US had made it clear that it wouldn’t support NATO membership for Ukraine. And much later, in March this year, its Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that Ukraine had never been promised membership in the organisation.
Nevertheless, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is still hopeful that his country will be admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Moscow began gathering troops near Ukraine’s borders in the latter part of 2021 while categorically stating that Kyiv shouldn’t be admitted to the military alliance. And then on 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.
NATO INTRUDES Although NATO didn’t desire Ukraine as a member, it enthusiastically became involved in the war against Russia and virtually signalled a military alliance with Kyiv.
Political analysts claim the alliance seriously underestimated Putin’s desire to dominate the Black Sea region and that it needs to understand Moscow’s future strategic intentions before inking any peace agreement.
Similar to Ukraine’s aspiration to NATO membership is Russia’s dream of dominating the Black Sea region. And taking control of the seaport of Odessa on the northwestern coast, which is currently under Ukrainian control, remains central to this ambition.
The United States imposed a sweeping range of sanctions against Russia on 15 April 2021 in response to what it termed a “wide array of malign actions” – almost a year before Moscow invaded Ukraine. But that didn’t faze Putin, and the Russian juggernaut continued to battle its way into Ukraine and even managed to capture a portion of the country’s eastern flank.
ALASKA SUMMIT When Trump and Putin met in August in Anchorage, the latter indicated that Ukraine should cede the Donets Basin (Donbas) region to Russia; and in turn, he would freeze the front line to the south at Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
But the Russian president maintained that Kyiv must not join NATO and indicated he was also unwilling to allow Western peacekeepers in Ukraine. Putin wants Russia to retain all the territory it has captured on the eastern section of the country but is ready to release small pockets of regions it’s captured elsewhere.
Recent assessments suggest that Russia controls the Luhansk Oblast (approximately 99%) Donetsk region within the Donbas (79%), Zaporizhzhia (74%) and Kherson (76%).
Meanwhile, Putin wants a legally binding pledge from NATO that it will not expand farther eastwards, set limits for the Ukrainian armed forces and ensure zero deployment of Western troops in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force.
However, when he spoke at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China, Putin’s tone was less conciliatory. He claimed that the crisis in Ukraine is the result of the Western orchestrated coup of 2014 and asserted he wasn’t willing to back down from his demand for total Ukrainian capitulation.
The Russian leader added that peace was unsustainable if the root causes (Ukraine’s alleged discrimination against Russian speaking people and NATO’s eastward expansion) weren’t eliminated.
NATO’S ANGST According to the non-profit economic research organisation Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), Ukraine received over US$ 360 billion from 41 countries in the form of military, financial and humanitarian aid since the invasion.
And the financial strain is telling on those countries because many are also funding Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
So after NATO leaders met Trump following his Alaska summit, they were very keen to push the idea of creating a 40 kilometre wide buffer zone between Ukrainian and Russian forces as part of a possible peace settlement. Apparently, Moscow expressed support for the plan but Kyiv rejected it outright.
Trump has vetoed any US troop involvement in monitoring the buffer zone as have Germany and Poland. Therefore, this would probably be left to the British and French. But Putin has banned the presence of any NATO troops on Ukrainian soil as it could be a precursor to an incursion into Russian territory.
So while the respective leaders fail to arrive at a resolution, death and destruction continue to be the order of the day.
