Security officials from the states that together make up the Commonwealth of Independent States (SUS) met on Wednesday, where the main topic was Putin’s “special operation in Ukraine”. From the podium, the Russian president said the US is using Ukraine as a scapegoat to bring down Russia, the State of the Union of Russia and Belarus, the Collective Security Pact and the SUS. In other words, Russia itself and the alliances and trade unions in which the superpower Russia plays a central role.
As the fall of the Soviet Union began to take its toll, a number of member states united in hopes of establishing a replacement. From the ruins of the Soviet Union arose the Commonwealth of Independent States, which consists of 9 of the 15 former Soviet states. Since the organization was created in 1991, the same year the Soviet Union fell, two countries have left the union; Georgia in 2009 and Ukraine in 2014.
The three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which left the Soviet Union a few months before the collapse of the union, did not become members of the SUS, choosing instead to aspire to join the European Community. Now all the Baltic countries are members of NATO and Putin and his close collaborators for several years have feared that Ukraine will follow in their footsteps.
Incidentally, Georgia has also established close ties with NATO and wants accordingly the alliance website become a NATO member. The country contributes, among other things, to NATO Operation Sea Guardian, which deals with the maritime defenses of the alliance. Their location along the Black Sea coast makes them a valuable partner. However, the border with Russia makes things complicated, just like with Ukraine.
(The case continues below the image).
“NATO has occupied Ukraine”
After Putin left the podium, the President of the State Duma Vyacheslav Viktorovich took the floor and said that “Ukraine is disappearing as a nation” and that the country is “occupied by NATO and has become an American colony”. writes the think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW). This isn’t the first time Viktorovich has said this, and the statement echoes the weeks before Russia began a complete invasion of Ukraine.
On January 18, about a month before the Russian forces’ assault on Ukraine, the State Duma issued a statement of concern. their websites. The State Duma is the lower house of the Russian Federal Assembly and is made up of 450 representatives elected every four years. The assembly is chaired by Viktorovich, a staunch defender of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
(The case continues below the image).
Viktorovich has long warned that Ukraine will sneak into NATO against the will of the people. Photo: State Duma / AP / NTB
– We are witnessing a hysterical Ukraine
He claimed, before the outbreak of the war, that Ukraine was desperate for help and that the big bad wolf was the United States.
– In recent months we have seen a hysterical Ukraine. US congressmen are trying to scare away the wits of the world, and it is obvious that Washington is trying to justify its desire to increase NATO’s presence in Russia, Viktorovich said in January.
Claims he has cracked the NATO code; Declare an enemy, then break the enemy’s knees. According to him, something happened in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Serbia.
– This is not a new method and we see clear signs that NATO is about to take Ukrainian territory. They already have men on the ground in Ukraine and now they just need a just cause to send the military. In other words, NATO is trying to occupy Ukraine, Viktorovich said.
Now he, and President Vladimir Putin, are claiming that exactly this has happened. They claim that NATO’s supply of arms and assistance to Ukraine is a way to sneak into the country through the back door. This, says ISW, does not correspond to the desire of the United States to negotiate, a ceasefire and an independent Ukraine.
The United States, for its part, says the Kremlin is using the allegations as a basis to continue and expand its invasion of Ukraine, and ISW says the statements confirm suspicion that Putin’s goals extend beyond already occupied areas. of Ukraine, which Russia declared attached. The rest of the world does not recognize the annexation, with even China and Iran sitting on the fence, despite the latter supplying Russia with the drones used in the war in Ukraine.
Video: Georgian forces send Wagner soldiers on the run:
