âȘThe demands are simple: NATO must erase the previous 25 years and pull back to its 1997 borders. That includes kicking out Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, who joined the alliance in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017); and North Macedonia (2020)...
Russian President Vladimir Putinâs government says heâs ânot bluffingâ when he issued demands that he knows canât be accepted by NATO â unless theyâre willing to surrender.
Currently, Ukraine is begging to join the alliance to maintain its independence. But Putin has made it crystal clear that any attempt by NATO to court Ukraine for membership would start a general conflict â and perhaps a world war.
This is something that many western European member states donât want any part of. Meanwhile, nations who were under the thumb of the old Soviet Union fear the revanchist nature of the Putin regime and would never submit to being captured in Russiaâs orbit again. In that sense, Ukraine is a test case for both Putin and the Alliance.
From the Washington Examiner:
Russia will not drop a demand that NATO âbe rolled backâ to its 1997 boundaries, according to a senior Russian envoy, a requirement backed by the threat of âa large-scale conflict in Europeâ arising out of Ukraine. âWe are not bluffing,â Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday, per state-run TASS. âThese are our real proposals. The Westâs awareness of this needs to be facilitated, and we are going to make every effort to achieve it.â Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed military forces around Ukrainian borders, ostensibly due to the dangers presented by Ukraine joining NATO at some future date. Putinâs team, which oversaw the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, portrays the latest round of tensions a consequence of NATO expansion over the last 25 years, raising the prospect of a major war in Europe.
Putin will take all of Ukraine peacefully or not. Those 100,000 troops arenât there as window dressing. They have been deployed as a clear threat to Ukraine and NATO.
But what the hell are those troops protecting from? Ukraine has been unsuccessfully trying to join NATO for two decades. Theyâre no closer to joining today than they were when the subject was first raised in 2008. At that time, Georgia and Ukraine were asking to be included in a Membership Action Plan that would eventually lead to NATO membership. But since both Ukraine and Georgia have disputed borders with Russia, the process canât even begin until those disputes are settled.
âIt is important to lower the degree of confrontation caused by the way our U.S. colleagues are looking after their Ukrainian proteges,â Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview published Sunday. âThe course on dragging Kyiv into NATO with the prospect of deploying attack missile systems near our borders creates unacceptable threats to Russiaâs security, thus provoking serious military risks for all parties involved, up to a large-scale conflict in Europe.âUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to join NATO, but that process has been stalled for nearly two decades. President Joe Biden said in July that âit remains to be seenâ whether Ukraine ever will âmeet [the] criteriaâ for membership in the trans-Atlantic alliance, but Russian officials want NATO to close the door on the idea.
Should Russia have veto power over who joins NATO and who doesnât? That issue may be decided during talks beginning next month between the U.S. and Russia.
âWe will adhere to the principle of ânothing about our allies and partners without our allies and partners, including Ukraine,ââ the NSC spokesman said. The U.S.-Russia talks will be held in Geneva as part of a security dialogue the two sides have used to discuss nuclear weapons and other military issues. They are likely to be led by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Mr. Ryabkov. That meeting would likely be followed on Jan. 12 by broader talks in Brussels in the NATO-Russia Council, an alliance forum for discussing security concerns with Moscow. Those discussions, if held as expected, would mark the first time that this council has met in more than two years.
Putin isnât crazy, but he may want to see how far he can push Biden and the NATO alliance without war. Itâs a dangerous game with 100,000 Russian troops loaded for bear on Ukraineâs border and Ukraineâs military already fighting Russia-backed rebels (and a considerable number of disguised Russian troops) in the east. âȘ
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