Last week, Hans Petter Midttun said The newspaper that the war in Ukraine could certainly have been avoided if NATO had acted differently. Midttun is a former Norwegian defense officer in Ukraine. He now gets partial support from Claus Mathiesen, a former Danish defense officer in Ukraine.
– If you had reacted earlier, mainly diplomatically, you could have prevented the invasion. However, I consider it to the extent that it would obviously have been a difficult task as Russia has been so determined to solve what they consider “the Ukrainian problem,” Mathiesen tells Dagbladet and continues:
– Goddess the draft agreement from Russia to the USA and NATO in December he demonstrated that creating sustainable compromises was not going to be an easy task. Apparently Russia was willing to overlook the significant challenges the invasion brought, both militarily and politically.
Mathiesen adds:
– These are challenges which are now becoming increasingly clear and which prove decisive for relations between Russia and democratic and liberal countries – and perhaps for the future fate of Russia.
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– Signs of weakness
The former Danish defense attorney believes that there is no doubt that Russia has perceived the Western reaction in recent years as insignificant and marked by difficulties in reaching a political agreement in both the EU and NATO.
– This is something that Russia clearly saw as a sign of weakness, and therefore they obviously did not care in relation to the invasion of Ukraine.
He believes that Russia has made several errors of assessment in the run-up to February 24, including as regards the willingness of Western countries to support Ukraine.
– Of course, Russia did not expect to find itself in a situation where the support of Western countries, both political, economic and military, significantly prevented them from achieving their goals in Ukraine in a relatively short time.
– This even though the biggest surprise ever for Russia was Ukraine’s political and military prowess and willingness to defend itself.
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Reactions against Russia
Hans Petter Midttun, the former Norwegian defense officer, believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin would never have dared to start a war against Ukraine if NATO had been clear in its relations with Russia and reacted harder to violations of the law international.
Mathiesen says that obviously one could have reacted differently.
– Obviously, one could have reacted differently, even showing understanding for the Russian demands. However, it is not easy to do this without, at the same time, compromising with its own principles of state sovereignty and the right to self-determination, enshrined in the 1990 Paris Charter.
Mathiesen continues:
– If we are talking about the fact that you could have reacted harder, this is obviously correct. But in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, a presidential change had just occurred, with the seemingly more moderate and cooperative Dmitry Medvedev for a period that replaced the clearly more challenging Vladimir Putin.
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Georgia and Crimea
The former Danish defense officer believes the West was not ready for a confrontation at the time. Furthermore, he believes that the annexation of Crimea happened too quickly for the West.
– The West was neither ready nor prepared for a confrontation with Russia and wanted to bind Russia closer to itself through cooperation.
– The annexation of Crimea in 2014 happened so quickly – from February 20 to March 18 – that the West initially did not have time to respond with nothing but reactions and by banning Russia from G8 cooperation.
– Despite political discussions in many countries that the EU and NATO themselves were responsible for Russia feeling compelled to take this step, they reacted by not recognizing Russian annexation and subsequently the vote of violation of sovereignty in the Crimea.
Mathiesen adds that the EU and NATO have strengthened cooperation with Ukraine, as well as the Baltic countries and Poland.
