"Militarist frenzy": how Russia reacted to Zelensky's accusations of inaction against NATO

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to provoke a conflict between Russia and NATO.

This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. 

“He (Zelensky. -

) was a little rude to his curators, accusing them of inaction.

My question is: if he is so upset that NATO did not stand up for him, as he hoped, then he is still relying on resolving the conflict by involving NATO in this whole story?

Not through negotiations?

It turns out that he does not hear the constant statements that come from Washington, from Paris, from Berlin, from other capitals that NATO is not going to interfere in this conflict,” Lavrov said after a meeting with Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev.

According to the minister, "such his (Zelensky. -

) militaristic frenzy, of course, suggests that he does not need negotiations."

“But let's hope that his mood can change, he is a man of moods,” Lavrov added.

Earlier, the President of Ukraine accused his NATO partners of weakness and unwillingness to provide real assistance.

“The NATO summit took place.

Weak summit, confused summit.

A summit that shows that not everyone considers the fight for freedom for Europe to be the number one goal,” Zelensky said in a video message posted on his Telegram channel.

The North Atlantic Alliance deliberately made a decision not to provide a no-fly zone over Ukraine and even invented a corresponding pretext, he claims.

“We believe that the NATO countries themselves have created a narrative that the alleged closing of the sky over Ukraine will provoke direct Russian aggression against NATO.

This is self-hypnosis of those who are weak, insecure internally, although they can wield weapons many times stronger than we have.

You had to think about people, about humanity.

What did you think about that meeting?

Zelensky said.

In this regard, he accused the alliance of failing to protect anyone, including its members, and also of trying to buy off Kyiv.

However, according to the President of Ukraine, the bloc will not succeed in doing this, because Ukraine today is allegedly fighting for "a common Europe, a common freedom, a common future."

• American F-15 fighter

• Legion Media

• © A. Perez Meca/Europa Press/Abaca/Sipa USA

Volodymyr Zelenskyy also once again mentioned the Budapest Memorandum, which spelled out security guarantees for Ukraine in connection with its denuclearization and accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but which was never ratified by any of its participating countries - the Russian Federation, UK, USA and Ukraine.

“All that the alliance was capable of today was to pass 50 tons of diesel fuel for Ukraine through its procurement system.

Probably so that we can burn the Budapest Memorandum, so that it burns better.

It has already burned down for us,” the politician noted.

Also on March 5, on the air of Ukrainian TV channels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that the current position of NATO does not command respect.

“I want to make a clear difference that there is a political agreement in NATO so that the allies at the bilateral level help Ukraine in every way they can.

But the alliance itself as an organization has essentially disappeared.

We have to be honest about it.

Ukrainians must clearly and honestly see that NATO is not really like that, that's how Ukrainians imagined it, at least for now.

If tomorrow they change their position, well done.

In the meantime, their position does not command respect,” Kuleba said.

"The right decision"

Meanwhile, NATO and the United States have repeatedly stressed that they are not going to fight for Ukraine.

In particular, US President Joe Biden stated back in December 2021 that the White House had never even considered the option of sending American troops to the country.

He also previously recalled that the United States has no obligation to protect anyone other than members of the North Atlantic Alliance from military aggression by third states.

• Gettyimages.ru

The absence of plans to send their military to Ukraine at the end of January was also discussed in the UK.

In addition, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported on February 28 that the country's Ministry of Defense warned its military personnel against participating in the Ukrainian conflict in order to avoid provoking an even greater escalation.

The head of the department, Ben Wallace, on the air of the Sky News TV channel, said that the British, who want to help Ukraine, are better off enlisting in the armed forces of the Kingdom.

A similar unity of opinion was observed on the issue of creating a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

So, on March 4, at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries of the alliance, none of the NATO countries expressed a desire to participate in its establishment, so as not to provoke an even greater conflict.

Moreover, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz noted in an interview with the German ZDF TV channel on March 3, not accepting Ukraine into NATO was the right decision.

“It was the right decision.

Then there were very, very long negotiations in NATO on this issue.

And I want to emphasize that even now this was not at all and is not on the agenda, ”Scholz stated.

Opinions differed

Not everything is going smoothly with the supply of foreign weapons to Ukraine.

So, on March 5, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on the destruction of a warehouse with American and Swedish-British weapons.

“Over the past 24 hours, a long-range precision weapon destroyed an ammunition depot on the territory of a military unit in Zhytomyr, where Javelin and NLAW anti-tank missile systems were stored,” Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said at a briefing.

Despite the fact that many Western countries have expressed their readiness to provide Ukraine with even more weapons, not everyone is ready to share their own arsenal with Kiev.

In particular, Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia denied the statement of the press service of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on March 1 that they would transfer 70 aircraft to the Ukrainian army.

So, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov on the same day said that the country did not assume any obligations to supply military equipment to Kiev. 

In turn, Polish President Andrzej Duda, on March 2, after the end of the meeting of the National Security Council, urged not to listen to reports that Warsaw was allegedly ready to give something to someone, since Poland does not intend to take part in the war.

The fact that the issue of transferring aircraft has never been raised was also stated by the press secretary of the Slovak Ministry of Defense Martina Koval-Kakashchikova.

“We cannot transfer (to another country. -

) such an important element of protecting our airspace without an adequate replacement,” RIA Novosti quotes her words.

"Bitter Disappointment"

Experts interviewed by RT agree that Vladimir Zelensky's current statements about NATO indicate that Kyiv has begun to realize that the collective West is not eager to help Ukraine.

As Sergey Ermakov, a leading expert at the RISS Research Coordination Center, noted in an interview with RT, the Kiev authorities today are experiencing “bitter disappointment” in their partners, who promised them mountains of gold.

“The West, distributing only verbal promises, strongly influenced the foreign, military and domestic policy of the Ukrainian leadership, provoking it to serious anti-Russian actions.

However, when Russia could no longer endure it by announcing a special operation, NATO simply washed its hands of it.

At the same time, such a development of events was foreseen by all political scientists and experts, not only Russian, but also Western ones.

However, the collapse of Zelensky’s illusions happened only now,” Yermakov explained.

At the same time, as retired Major General Pavel Zolotarev, a member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, noted in a RT commentary, Zelensky continues to grasp at straws in order to involve the West in directly resolving the crisis in Ukraine, and therefore appeals to the Budapest memorandum.

According to the expert, in Kyiv they are trying in this way to shift the responsibility to the UK and the USA, which participated in the drafting of the document.

In turn, Dmitry Danilov, head of the European Security Department at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that Ukraine is unlikely to be able to reach out to Western partners, since direct participation in the conflict does not meet their interests.

“To show restraint is now one of the main tasks of NATO and the United States.

Moreover, Washington is traditionally accustomed to proxy wars.

No one in the West needs a full-scale conflict, the likelihood of which will increase many times over if one of the NATO members nevertheless responds to Kyiv's request for a no-fly zone.

Ukraine is of interest to Western countries only as an instrument of pressure on Russia, but not as a full-fledged partner, ”said Danilov.

However, in Kyiv they refuse to put up with such a situation, the expert noted.

After all, there were so many conversations before the start of the special operation that Ukraine would not be left alone, but in fact it turned out that Kyiv was left to deal with its problems on its own.

Although the origins of these problems are in the West.

“Therefore, today the Kyiv regime, not being able to emerge victorious from this situation, intends to focus on the consequences that Western countries could allegedly face if they “surrender” Ukraine,” Danilov summed up.