EDITORIAL: Tensions have been soaring over Russian troop build-up near the Ukraine border that the US-led NATO countries say is preparation for a potential attack. Moscow has denied it plans to invade a former Soviet republic but made it clear it would not allow Ukraine to join the Western military alliance. Last Friday, Russia published its proposals for lowering of tensions with the West and defusing the crisis over Ukraine, seeking a legally binding guarantee that NATO countries would give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine. Holding forth on these demands Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rayabkov told journalists that Russia and the West must start from a clean sheet in rebuilding relations, adding “the line pursued by the United States and NATO over recent years to aggressively escalate the security situation is absolutely unacceptable and extremely dangerous.”
That seems to make sense. For, NATO was formed in the aftermath of World War II to counter the influence of communist Soviet Union. After its collapse in 1991 that alliance lost its raison d’être. In fact, for a while both sides had flirted with the idea of Russia joining NATO, but great power pride stood in the way. Still needing an enemy, in the ensuing years the alliance kept moving closer to Russia by expanding into central and Eastern Europe, including former Soviet republics in the Baltic region: Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. The promised membership of Ukraine — dominated by ethnic Russians in its eastern region — has turned out to be the tipping point for Moscow because that would make the country a base for Western weapons pointed directly at it. Russia may not be planning to invade Ukraine, but as a London university professor has so aptly put it, President Vladimir Putin is “drawing a line around the post-Soviet space and planting a ‘keep out sign’”. He has genuine concerns about NATO nations’ intentions as they continue to arm and train Ukraine’s forces, with the US providing the country with huge amounts of additional civilian and military aid. They are also believed to be behind the failure of the Minsk agreements that were to end the conflict between Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine and the government in Kyiv by creating a loose federation.
No doubt, President Putin has nostalgia for the erstwhile Soviet Union, the fall of which he has described as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century, and retained some of its attributes. Considering where he is coming from it is difficult to predict how far he is willing to go in asserting his country’s position. But the US threats of severe economic sanctions are unlikely to deter Russia. Nor the offer of discussion on European security within the context of de-escalation is expected to yield a positive outcome. Moscow is right, nevertheless, in demanding security guarantees from the West. Putin wants Ukraine to become a buffer state between the two sides. That actually may be in the best interest of both sides.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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