[Circle Time Depth] Lift off the American mask layer by layer! The initiator of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the United States!
[Global Times Special Correspondent Zhang Hao] Editor's note: As of March 24, the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out for a whole month.
As the conflict continues, the international community is increasingly seeing the role of NATO, led by the United States, behind the crisis.
From leading NATO’s eastward expansion to squeeze Russia’s living space step by step, to waiting for an opportunity to launch a “color revolution” against Russia and its neighboring countries; from continuing to deploy Ukraine’s “quasi-battlefield” to creating regional turmoil for decades; "Disobedient countries" brandish the stick of sanctions to force other countries and allies to stand in line... Countless facts show that the United States is the initiator of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
"Global Times" has launched "deep cognition" articles one after another from today, lifting the American mask layer by layer.
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Russia, as the "eldest son of the 15 republics", inherited the Soviet Union's "one-vote veto" in the UN Security Council, the Soviet Union's great-power temperament and historical feelings, as well as most of its territory and overseas assets, and also inherited the Soviet Union's The debts and crises generated after the disintegration have also taught me the promises and betrayals of Western countries led by the United States.
For 30 years, the United States has squeezed Russia's strategic security space in an extremely arrogant and rude way, leaving a bad debt for regional security.
"Not even an inch will expand eastward"?
On December 23, 2021, NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg claimed in response to a Russian security initiative that NATO never promised anyone that it would not expand.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said angrily at the annual press conference held on the same day that NATO deceived Russia, because the organization had promised in the 1990s that "it will not expand to the east by an inch", but it has engaged in five expansions, reducing its power. The scope is advanced to the Russian border, "now it starts to say 'Ukraine will also join NATO', which is a brazen deception".
NATO's promise "not to expand eastward by an inch" was a lie from the start.
The first specific guarantee from the West that "NATO will not expand eastward" was on January 31, 1990, when the then West German Foreign Minister Genscher said in a public speech on the issue of German reunification that changes in Eastern Europe and the German reunification process must not be compromised. Soviet security interests, NATO should rule out "the possibility of extending its reach eastward, even closer to the Soviet border (than then)".
In this context, the Soviet attitude gradually softened.
On February 10, 1990, the then West German Chancellor Kohl and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Moscow. The Soviet Union agreed in principle to the German reunification plan proposed by the West German leader, but only if NATO did not expand eastward.
On March 27, 2020 local time, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced on its official website that North Macedonia officially joined NATO as its 30th member.
In order to win the Soviet Union's approval of the reunification of the two Germanys and non-interference in the wave of change in other Eastern European socialist countries, the United States quickly responded positively to the Soviet Union's request that NATO should not expand eastward.
In 1990, when the then US Secretary of State Baker met with Gorbachev, he made a clear commitment that NATO "will not expand eastward by an inch".
"Neither the President of the United States nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantage from the process that is taking place...it is important that we provide assurances that if the United States maintains its presence in Germany within the NATO framework, then NATO's current military The border will not expand eastward, even if it is an inch away.” However, the fact is that NATO has been expanding all the way eastward, expanding and expanding, resulting in an escalating crisis in Ukraine.
The rose-colored illusion is always an illusion
It is undeniable that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia also had great hopes for the West.
In 1991, Russia was invited to participate in the G7 leaders' summit, and it jumped from an "evil red empire" in the eyes of the West to a great power on an equal footing with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan.
In 1997, Russia was admitted as a member, and the G7 became the G8.
At that time, there was a fairy-tale illusion in Russia that "the prince and the princess have lived a good life since then".
First, Gorbachev, and then Yeltsin, all felt a little airy on this stage.
Even after experiencing the economic woes of the 1990s and seeing the West's insensitivity to Russia's plight, Russia still has illusions about the West.
In March 2000, Putin, who was still a presidential candidate at the time, said in an interview with the media that Russia could become an equal member of NATO, provided that "Russia's interests can be taken into account and it can become a completely equal partner".
Judging from Russia's diplomatic gesture of showing goodwill to the West, Russia was sincere towards the West at that time.
People check the damage caused by anti-government protests at Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 20, 2014.
The event is part of a U.S.-backed campaign against the pro-Russian government.
Putin's first friend in the NATO group was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was seven months younger than him.
In March 2000, British Prime Minister Tony Blair flew to St. Petersburg.
Putin took Blair to the Mariinsky Theatre to watch the opera War and Peace.
In the meantime, Putin told Blair that they were both peers and colleagues (studying law), and of course they could find a common language.
Blair excitedly called other G7 leaders after returning to London, praising Putin as "a man with political vision who knows what he should do".
In his first year as Russian president, Putin and Blair met five times, during which they left a story of not wearing a tie late at night and having a drink together in a street pub in St. Petersburg.
However, the escalating "friendship" between Putin and Western leaders does not seem to have changed Russia's geostrategic situation, and everything has continued to deteriorate.
From 1999 to 2020, NATO expanded its member countries from 16 to 30 through eastward expansion, and completed a 3,000-kilometer strategic approach and encirclement of Russia from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.
As early as 2002, when Bush Jr., Blair and others insisted on inviting seven countries, including the three Baltic countries, to join NATO, despite Russia's opposition, Putin began to doubt the West and regarded this behavior as a betrayal.
"Putin concluded that the Americans did not want to give him the status he deserved," Blair later said in his memoirs.
Russia wakes up
Putin's speech at the Munich Security Conference on February 10, 2007, is now recognized as Putin's message to the West to "give up illusions and prepare to fight".
The speech is still deafening to read.
In his speech, Putin severely criticized U.S. foreign policy and the idea of a unipolar world order, and strongly opposed NATO expansion and plans to deploy U.S. anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe.
He said: "I think the NATO expansion process clearly has nothing to do with the modernization of the organization itself and the security of Europe. On the contrary, it is a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. We also have the right to openly ask, who is this expansion aimed at? Warsaw What happened to the assurances made by the Western partners after the disbandment of the Treaty Organization? Where are these statements now? No one even remembers them. I would like to quote Mr. Werner, NATO (then) Secretary General, on May 17, 1990 A speech. At the time he said 'We are not going to deploy NATO troops outside West Germany, which would provide the Soviet Union with solid security guarantees'. Where are these guarantees?"
When Putin threw out this series of questions, the audience was dead silent. No country, whether it was the United States or other NATO members, came out to give Russia an answer to the anger and humiliation.
On February 10, 2022, the 15th anniversary of Putin's 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that now countries are talking about tensions and an imminent "invasion", which happened in 2007. It's hard to imagine years, but what's happening now proves once again that President Putin is right.
Peskov pointed out that after Putin's Munich speech 15 years ago, there is still a possibility of turning things around.
He said: “At that time, some countries had the opportunity to understand that it was futile to ensure a unipolar world. It was futile not because there would be confrontations in some way, but because unipolarity itself could not guarantee security and order, and Countries and groups of countries with equally broad and powerful potential are emerging. But they are not listening, and developments over the past few years have brought us to the extreme danger we are now in."
Defusing the "time bomb" of NATO's eastward expansion
In response to NATO's eastward expansion, Putin pointed out in 2014: "We have always hoped to cooperate with Western countries on important issues, to strengthen mutual trust, and to have an equal, open and honest relationship, but we I don't see any effort from you on this. Instead, we have been deceived time and time again, other people make decisions for us behind our backs, and we are left with fait accompli. This happened during NATO's eastward expansion, in It happened when they put military installations near our border. The West keeps saying 'Well, it has nothing to do with you.'
On February 12, 2022, people in Melec, Poland, observe U.S. military equipment at a temporary base.
U.S. President Joe Biden announced a day earlier that 3,000 troops would be sent to Poland.
After the deterioration of Russian-Ukrainian relations in 2014, Ukraine accelerated its process of joining NATO. In 2019, it even included Ukraine's joining NATO as the basic policy of the country in the constitution, which touched Russia's bottom line of security and confirmed that Russia must dismantle it. The determination of NATO's eastward expansion close to the Russian border and the "time bomb" of Russia's "historical territory".
Judging from the course since the deterioration of Russia-Ukraine relations in 2014, Putin's red line on Ukraine has always been very clear, that is, opposition to external forces, rejection of external military intervention, Ukraine's refusal to join NATO, and Russia's "historical territory" inviolable.
In March 2014, Putin asked: "There are already threats in Kyiv to speed up Ukraine's accession to NATO ... This will threaten southern Russia, not a fleeting harassment, but a real threat." Putin said that Russia does not oppose cooperation with NATO, but opposes NATO's development of its own military organization behind closed doors when there is a confrontation between military groups.
In July 2021, Putin once again pointed out in his article "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" that Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine, but its partners are defending national interests, not serving other countries, and cannot act as a tools in the hands of others against Russia.
The culprit is the US
Combing Putin's hatred and pain on the issue of NATO's eastward expansion, it can be said that if there is a "whistleblower" in the current conflict, Putin is the one who has been whistling to the United States and the West since 2007. The sound was shrill and even harsh, but NATO, led by the United States, turned a deaf ear.
In June 2021, U.S. President Biden and Putin met in Switzerland and agreed that the two sides will conduct multi-level and multi-field consultations for half a year to adjust the relationship between the two countries.
Putin, who has been a "whistleblower" for more than ten years, once again raised issues such as NATO's eastward expansion and Ukraine's joining NATO in this context. However, Biden, known for his "sleepy", showed the usual arrogance and indifference of the West. Respond to Putin's concerns.
At the end of October 2021, Russia put heavy forces on Ukraine and began to exert maximum pressure on Ukraine and the Western bloc behind it.
Among them, the content of Ukraine's "red line" can be regarded as the focus of this draft, which excludes the possibility of further expansion of NATO and Ukraine's joining the organization.
The follow-up development has been seen by everyone recently: NATO and the United States have arrogantly refuted the draft security treaty proposed by Russia, saying that Ukraine has the right to apply, and that the right to ratify NATO depends on its 30 member states.
The final conclusion of the United States and NATO is nothing more than a sentence - "This matter (Russia's draft security treaty) cannot be realized!"
Judging from Russia's historical context and position on the Ukraine issue, the draft Russian security guarantee treaty is its asking price to seek a package of security solutions from the West. There are many points of compromise, but Russia has no way out on the Ukraine issue. Refundable.
Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine are the core components of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in history.
Russia has practical security interest considerations for Ukraine's strategy, as well as the justice of national sentiment and the rationality of historical context.
The security concern of ensuring Ukraine is not included in the NATO military system is understandable.
A growing number of international analysts believe that Ukraine needs a security guarantee, as does Russia.
The United States and NATO cannot and should not stay on the sidelines and watch from the sidelines.
Instead, Washington needs to reflect on its longstanding arrogance and prejudice in its strategy toward Russia.
The protracted threat and counter-threat struggle between Russia and the United States and NATO has turned into a bloody battle between the two brotherly countries of Russia and Ukraine, which has made many people who have deep feelings for Russia and Ukraine very sad.
Before this conflict broke out, the author once asked a local in Chernihiv, Ukraine, "Is it the responsibility of the Russians or the Ukrainians for the deterioration of Russia-Ukraine relations?" The old man replied that it was not the Ukrainians and the Russians. Responsibility, the Ukrainian and Russian people will always be brothers and sisters, and the culprit is the United States.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said: "The problem with the Americans is that it is easy to go to extremes, either adopting isolationism and staying on their own, or adopting interventionism and attacking everywhere, while the problem with the Russians is that they care too much about security issues." A crux of the Russian-American relationship.
Every country in the world has the right to security, and Americans often wonder about it.
They are indeed used to being domineering, and it is commonplace to provoke conflict in the world.