The seeming tension between Russia, Ukraine and NATO presently is worrying.
This should not have called for worries because Russia is still deployed within its borders with Ukraine.
Though Russia says it is not about to invade Ukraine, the Western countries led by the USA are 100% certain that there will be an invasion.
The USA and its NATO allies have sent troops to neighbouring countries of Poland and massive weapons supply to Ukraine.
Who should we believe? Will Russia invade Ukraine? Time will tell. But how did we come to this?
Between 1956 and 1991, the Soviet Union was composed of the following Republics:
1 Russia
2 Ukraine
3 Byeloruss
4 Uzbekistan
5 Kazakhstan
6 Georgia
7 Azerbaijan
8 Lithuania
9 Moldavia
10 Latvia
11 Kirghiztan
12 Tajikistan
13 Armenian
14 Turkmenistan
15 Estonia
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 with the above republics declaring their independence.
*THE ROLE OF GERMANY*
After the defeat of Germany in WW2, the country was shared among the victors in the Potsdam Agreement in August 1945. The Federal Republic of Germany including West Berlin belonged to the USA an its allies whilst The Democratic Republic of Germany(East Germany) including East Berlin, went to the Soviet Union.
Series of events in the the 80s led to agreements to unify Germany. Some of these agreements though not signed as treaties assured the Soviet Union that NATO will not expand eastwards.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. These assurances made the Soviet Union to relinquish control over East Germany.
The final barrier to reunification fell in July 1990 when West German Chancellor Hermut Kohl prevailed upon Gorbachev to drop his objections to a unified Germany within the NATO alliance in return for sizable (West) German financial aid to the Soviet Union. A unification treaty was ratified by the Bundestag and the People’s Chamber in September and went into effect on October 3, 1990. The German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany as one country.
*USSR BREAK-UP*
The break-up was as a result of Gorbachev’s initiative to reform the Soviet system. *Perestroika* (“restructuring” in Russian) refers to a series of political and economic reforms meant to kick-start the stagnant 1980s economy of the Soviet Union. Its architect, President Mikhail Gorbachev, would oversee the most fundamental changes to his nation’s economic engine and political structure since the Russian Revolution. But the suddenness of these reforms, coupled with growing instability both inside and out of the Soviet Union, would contribute to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991.
Early Attempts at Reform
In May 1985, two months after coming to power, Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a speech in St. Petersburg (then known as Leningrad), in which he publicly criticized the inefficient economic system of the Soviet Union, making him the first Communist leader to do so.
This was followed by a February 1986 speech to the Communist Party Congress, in which he expanded upon the need for political and economic restructuring, or *perestroika*, and called for a new era of transparency and openness, or *glasnost*. These two reforms brought about the break-up of the USSR.
*THE ISSUE OF UKRAINE*
After the break-up of the Soviet Union which Ukraine was part, the agreement had been signed that NATO will not expand into the former Soviet Republics.
Relations between the two countries have been hostile since the Revolution of Dignity, which toppled Ukraine’s elected president Viktor Yanukovych and his supporters, because he refused to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union that enjoyed majority support in Ukraine’s parliament. Ukraine’s post-revolutionary government wished to commit the country to a future within the EU and NATO, rather than continue to play the delicate diplomatic game of balancing its own economic and security interests with those of Russia, the EU, and NATO members.
In 2004 the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia had joined the EU, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.
The Russian government feared that Ukraine’s membership of the EU and NATO would complete a western wall of allied countries by restricting Russia’s access to the Black Sea. With South Korea and Japan being allied to the US, the Russian government was concerned that Russia was being ring-fenced by potentially hostile powers.
In the wake of the Revolution of Dignity, Russia backed separatist militias in the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in a war in Ukraine’s economically important Donbas region, on its eastern border with Russia. This region has a Russian ethnic majority. By early 2022 the Russo-Ukrainian War had killed more than 13,000 people, and brought some Western sanctions on Russia.
In 2019, amendments were made to the Constitution of Ukraine, which enshrined the irreversibility of the country’s strategic course towards EU and NATO membership.
Throughout 2021, Russian military buildup on the border of Ukraine has escalated tensions between the two countries and strained bilateral relations, with the United States sending a strong message that invasion would be met with dire consequences for Russia’s economy. Despite this, Russia has repeatedly denied having plans to invade Ukraine.
The second major dispute of early years was over the fate of the Black Sea Fleet as well as its operating bases, mainly Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. The issue was compounded by political posturing, Ukrainian proclamation that the entire fleet was under Russia’s jurisdiction and intention to pursue a NATO Membership Action Plan, followed by Russian politicians expressions of territorial claims over parts of Crimea and declaration by Russian parliament that the 1954 gifting of Crimea to Ukraine was illegitimate, making the peninsula an ongoing issue in negotiations.
The action of transfer was attributed to Communist Party first secretary Nikita Khrushchev. After several years of intense negotiations the whole issue was resolved in 1997. The Partition Treaty divided the fleet and allowed Russia to lease some of the naval bases in Sevastopol to the Russian Navy until 2017, and Treaty of Friendship, fixed the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, respect for territorial integrity and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other.
*Effects of the Russo- Georgean war*
The Russo-Georgian War in 2008 was a war between Georgia, Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Relations between Ukraine and Russia soured, due to Ukraine’s support and selling of arms to Georgia, as well as, the new Ukrainian regulations for the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which sent vessels and marines to the war, such as the demand that Russia obtain prior permission when crossing the Ukrainian border, which Russia refused to comply with.
On 2 October 2008, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of supplying arms to Georgia during the South Ossetia War. Putin also claimed that Moscow had evidence proving that Ukrainian military experts were present in the conflict zone during the war. Ukraine denied the allegations.
The US supported Ukraine’s bid to join NATO launched in January 2008 as an effort to obtain the NATO Membership Action Plan. Russia strongly opposed any prospect of Ukraine and Georgia becoming NATO members. According to the alleged transcript of Putin’s speech at the 2008 NATO–Russia Council Summit in Bucharest, Putin spoke of Russia’s responsibility for ethnic Russians resident in Ukraine and urged his NATO partners to act advisedly; according to some media reports he then also privately hinted to his US counterpart at the possibility of Ukraine losing its integrity in the event of its NATO accession. According to a document in the United States diplomatic cables leak Putin “implicitly challenged the territorial integrity of Ukraine, suggesting that Ukraine was an artificial creation sewn together from territory of Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and especially Russia in the aftermath of the Second World War.”
In September 2013, Russia warned Ukraine that if it went ahead with a planned agreement on free trade with the EU, it would face financial catastrophe and possibly the collapse of the state.
*Annexation of Crimea and war in eastern Ukraine*
The 2014 Crimean crisis was unfolding in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, in the aftermath of the February 2014 Ukrainian revolution, in which the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. Protests were staged by groups of mainly ethnic Russians who opposed the events in Kyiv and wanted close ties or integration with Russia, in addition to expanded autonomy or possible independence for Crimea.
In mid March, after a disputed local referendum, Russia recognized Crimea as a sovereign state and proceeded to formally annexing the peninsula. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Provisional Principal of Russia in Ukraine to present note verbale of protest against Russia’s recognition of the Republic of Crimea and its subsequent annexation. Two days later, the Verkhovna Rada(Ukrainian legislature) condemned the treaty and called Russia’s actions “a gross violation of international law”. Additionally Ukraine responded with sanctions against Russia as well as blacklisting and freezing assets of numerous individuals and entities involved with the annexation. Ukraine announced not to buy Russian products. Other countries supporting Ukraine’s position (e.g. the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Albania, Montenegro, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.) followed similar measures. Russia responded with similar measures against Ukraine and its supporters but did not publicly reveal the list of people or entities sanctioned.
In May 2015, Ukraine suspended military cooperation agreement with Russia, that was in place since 1993. Following a breakdown in mutual business ties, Ukraine also ceased supply of components that were used in production of military equipment by Russia.
In August, Russia announced that it will ban import of Ukrainian agricultural goods from January 2016. In October 2015, Ukraine banned all direct flights between Ukraine and Russia. In November 2015, Ukraine closed its air space to all Russian military and civil airplanes. In December 2015, Ukrainian lawmakers voted to place a trade embargo on Russia in retaliation of the latter’s cancellation of the two countries free-trade zone and ban on food imports as the free-trade agreement between the European Union and Ukraine is to come into force in January 2016. Russia imposes tariffs on Ukrainian goods from January 2016, as Ukraine joins the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the EU.
Since 2015 Ukraine banned Russian artists from entering Ukraine and also banned other Russian works of culture from Russia when they were considered “a threat to national security”.
In February 2017, the Ukrainian government banned the commercial importation of books from Russia, which had accounted for up to 60% of all titles sold in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s 2017 education law makes Ukrainian the only language of primary education in state schools. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. Russia’s Foreign Ministry stated that the law is designed to “forcefully establish a mono-ethnic language regime in a multinational state.”
On 18 January 2018 the Ukrainian parliament passed a law defining areas seized by the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic as “temporarily occupied by Russia.” The law also called Russia an “aggressor” state.
In March 2018, the Ukrainian border guards detained in the Sea of Azov the Russian-flagged, Crimean-registered fishing vessel Nord, accusing the crew of entering “territory, which has been under a temporary occupation”. The captain of the Nord, Vladimir Gorbenko, is facing up to five years in prison.
In November 2018 Russia fired upon and seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels (and imprisoned its 24 sailors in Moscow off the coast of Crimea injuring crew members. The event prompted angry protests outside the Russian embassy in Ukraine and an embassy car was set on fire. Consequently, martial law was imposed for a 30-day period from 26 November in 10 Ukrainian border oblasts (regions). Martial law was introduced because Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko claimed there was a threat of “full-scale war” with Russia. During the martial law (and starting on 30 November 2018) Ukraine banned all Russian men between 16 and 60 from entering the country for the period of the martial law with exceptions for humanitarian purposes. Ukraine claimed this was a security measure to prevent Russia from forming units of “private” armies on Ukrainian soil.
On 11 July 2019, the newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the former’s appeals to the Russian leader to take part in talks with Ukraine, the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom in Minsk. The leaders also discussed the exchange of prisoners held by both sides. On 7 September, Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners.
Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom and Ukraine agreed a five-year deal on Russian gas transit to Europe at the end of 2019.
As part of the ongoing war in Donbas, fighting escalated in the first quarter of 2021, with 25 Ukrainian soldiers dying in the conflict, compared to the 50 that died in 2020 according to Ukrainian authorities. In late March 2021, it was reported that large movements of military equipment were occurring in various areas within Russia, with the equipment headed to Crimea, the Rostov and Voronezh oblasts. Various intelligence in the following months, including a statement from Russian news agency TASS, put the amount of troops situated in the Southern Military District which borders the Donbas conflict zone at 85,000 to 90,000. Despite reassurances from a Russian government official that the troops “pose no threat”, Russian official Dmitry Kozak stated that Russian forces will act to “defend” Russian citizens in Ukraine, and any escalation would lead to “the beginning of the end of Ukraine”.
*USA INVOLVEMENT*
On 7 December 2021, American president Joe Biden spoke with Russian president Vladimir Putin via a secure video link regarding the build-up of Russian military presence & increase in tensions on the Ukrainian border in response to Ukraine’s intent to join NATO, which Putin described as a “security threat”. These tensions also come in line with the election of Volodymyr Zelensky, who has pushed back against Russian encroachment on Ukrainian sovereignty. During this video conference, Putin described Western military activity in Ukraine was approaching “a red line”, reiterating the threat towards Russian national security. Biden responded by stating that the United States was ready to impose various economic sanctions more harmful than the post-Crimea annexation sanctions if Russia were to take military actions, most notably floating the possibility of cutting Russia out from the global financial telecommunication giant Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT. However, European leaders fear that this step might provoke an even harsher response from Russia.
Whilst Biden ruled out the possibility of direct American military intervention in Ukraine, he mentioned that the United States may “be required to reinforce our presence in NATO countries to reassure particularly those in the eastern front”. Ukrainian general Kyrylo O. Budanov said when speaking to the New York Times that “There are not sufficient military resources for repelling a full-scale attack by Russia if it begins without the support of” additional forces, and that “without delivery of reserves, there’s not an army in the world that can hold out”. Russia has repeatedly denied any plans to invade Ukraine.
*LESSONS*
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security.
The U.S. and an informal coalition of several NATO countries are operating an air bridge to ship military aid to Ukraine, flying in the weapons and ammunition that Kyiv has requested to mitigate a decided Russian military edge and deter a possible invasion.
Eight U.S. cargo airplanes have landed in Kyiv since Jan. 22, after U.S. President Joe Biden approved $200 million in new military aid for Ukraine, with more scheduled in coming days. North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, including the U.K. and the Baltic states, have also sent plane loads of weapons, with Poland and the Czech Republic slated to make deliveries soon.
The U.S. has sent roughly 650 tons of arms and equipment to Ukraine since Jan.22. Since Russia’s seizure of Crimea and occupation of the eastern Donbas areas in 2014, the U.S. has delivered $2.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
“Those deliveries are ongoing,” a Pentagon spokesman said. “The U.S. is identifying additional equipment held in Department of Defense inventories.”
Last month, the U.S. administration notified Congress it planned to transfer five Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopters to Ukraine’s possession. The Afghan army had been using the helicopters, which are now in Ukraine for servicing. A U.S. official said the administration was awaiting the conclusion of approval procedures.
Why is the USA practicing what it did not like when the USSR deployed weapons in Cuba? Is the USA ready for a confrontation with Russia?
Already the United States is relocating its Embassy from Kyiv. Almost all European and NATO members are evacuating their citizens from Ukraine. Is Russian invasion imminent?
*MY TAKE AND PROSPECTS FOR PEACE*
1. The Ukrainian President has cautioned the Western countries to stop fanning the flames of war. This is because, the Western countries are not prepared to go to war to assist Ukraine if invaded. They can only sanction Russia.
2. The reason for the Russian built-up is the intention of Ukraine to bring NATO to the borders of Russia, a situation the US will never accept as manifested during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
3. The USA and its NATO partners must accept and respect the agreements reached with the Soviet Union in 1990 not to expand eastwards toward Russia.
4. Ukraine must sign an agreement never to join NATO in other to save itself from occupation.
5. Will the USA risk a third world war just to save Ukraine. Following the disastrous engagements in recent years I doubt if the USA has the capacity to engage Russia.
6. NATO and its partners must tone down their rhetorics and threats against Russia who has already surrounded Ukraine.
7. Ukraine must understand that its peace and security does not lie in NATO but peaceful coexistence with its neighbours.
Source: Col Sulleyman