Ukraine EU woos Russia's neighbors but without offering concrete promises
Ukraine The EU warns: "Any aggression against Ukraine will have a high cost for Russia"
Vladimir Putin threatens a "military-technical" response
to what
Russia
perceives as
threatening movements by the West
: "We have the right to take measures to guarantee Russia's security and sovereignty." The Russian president has said that he hopes the negotiations on his security proposals will be constructive and yield results. And he has already put pressure on his part
to be taken into account or to arm himself with reasons if he is not listened to
.
"If our Western colleagues continue their clearly aggressive stance, we will take retaliatory military-technical measures and react harshly to all hostile actions,
" Putin told a meeting of the Defense Ministry board.
, according to the state news agency TASS.
His Defense Minister, Serguei Shoigu, was more specific in his complaints. He claimed that private US military companies
have stationed troops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine
and that they are preparing a "provocation with unknown chemical components." "We have detected the presence of more than 120 members of US mercenary groups in the cities of Avdiivka and Krasny Liman to carry out provocations.
We know that tanks filled with chemical components were delivered,
" he said in statements collected by the TASS agency.
Russia last week sent the United States a list of
"demands for guarantees" for NATO to abandon its military activities in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
. They also ask that any former Soviet country be denied future NATO membership and that the United States not establish new military bases in the former USSR territories. What the Kremlin has not clarified is who it will attack if Joe Biden, who has just withdrawn from Afghanistan,
does not agree to a North American withdrawal in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
announced that the United States has "expressed its willingness" to start a dialogue.
on security guarantees that seek to limit NATO's expansion to the east.
But NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has already recalled that the alliance "will not compromise"
Ukraine's right to "choose its own path"
and seek its membership in NATO.
In fact, the Atlantic Alliance and Kiev are closer than ever today, albeit without a clear membership schedule.
The pretext of Moscow
For many NATO members to agree with Moscow what should happen outside Russian borders would mean capitulating to Russia. Russian analyst Fyodor Lukianov, chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, does not see why the West may suddenly feel the need to carry out such a radical overhaul of the post-Cold War European security system. "
There is not enough threat to consider such drastic measures
. Moscow surely knows this, indicating that it might have a different goal in mind: to get a refusal to be able to say: 'We made an offer and we are not to blame for what we do next. "Lukianov wrote this week in
The Moscow Times
. He believes that the Kremlin "is creating a pretext by which
he can freely review the existing relationship system
, a step for which he seems to feel the time has come. "So the ball is actually in Russia's court, not in the US.
Washington and its NATO allies
estimate that around 100,000 Russian troops are deployed to the border with Ukraine
.
Russia says there are fewer, and has repeatedly denied planning a new intervention in the neighboring country.
It argues that it has the right to move troops within its borders.
But Putin has stressed that Moscow
will only accept "long-term legally binding guarantees with Washington
."
Moscow says it is the US that is increasing the tension with its deployment.
"What is happening now, the tension that is developing in Europe, is their [US] fault.
With each step Russia has been forced to respond in some way
, with each measure the situation has worsened. Now we find ourselves in a juncture in which we have to decide, "Putin said at his meeting at the Defense Ministry.
If Washington continues its actions against Russia, the president warned, Moscow will respond symmetrically.
"The United States is increasing its military presence on the Russian borders. In Eastern European countries, US units, some 8,000 military personnel in total, are deployed on a rotating basis," Shoigu explained.
Risk of another invasion
The United States and the European Union have repeatedly warned Russia that any military action in Ukraine
would face sanctions far worse than those imposed in 2014
, when Moscow annexed Crimea and intervened in the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in Donbas. Moscow accuses Kiev of preparing a seizure by force of the territories that were taken from it in 2014 and 2015.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zalensky
denies having an attack in mind and is unlikely to be politically in a position to do so today
.
But it is true that Zelensky's attitude towards Moscow has hardened.
"He came to office as president with an ambivalent vision of the relationship between Ukraine and NATO, now he is publicly asking for an early entry path for his country," said Steven Pifer, former US ambassador to Ukraine, a few days ago.
A poll in early December showed that a third of Ukrainians - a quarter if asked only in the east of the country -
would take up arms if the Russians invaded
.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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