Troops to Ukraine – This is what the secret plans are all about – 2024-02-28 04:50:06

Ukraine’s defense is in danger of collapsing because the Ukrainians are running out of soldiers and ammunition.

Ukrainians have enough will to fight because they know that a Russian occupation would lead to genocide and forced Russification, as has happened in Mariupol, for example.

Ukraine also does not have adequate air or missile defense.

The laws of mass are therefore on the attacker’s side.

EU and NATO countries have tied their prestige and credibility in international politics to the fact that they will not allow Russia to occupy Ukraine.

– We will do everything we can so that Russia does not win this war, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday in Paris.

In order to help Ukraine, France had called an emergency meeting, which was attended by, for example, Britain, Germany, Poland, Finland and Sweden.

Finland was represented at the meeting by the President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö.

At a press conference at the Élysée Palace, Macron made a significant statement. It was one of the strongest statements that the leaders of the democracies have made during the war about saving Ukraine.

– Today there was no consensus on sending official, publicly confirmed, troops to the country. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out, Macron said.

Macron’s statement means several different things.

First, there are EU and NATO countries that are preparing to send in reinforcements. Otherwise, Macron’s statement would be a bluff, which would undermine the credibility of the aid coalition.

Secondly, the statement contains a hint that there may already be soldiers from Western armies working in Ukraine, for example in intelligence, advisory and targeting tasks.

Third, Macron suggests that the dynamics of the war may require sending in reinforcements.

Iltalehti has discussed with foreign and security policy sources about what the sending of auxiliary forces would be in practice.

Individual NATO and EU countries would form, for example, a coalition of the willing led by Britain, which would announce that it would send its rapid response forces to a defined geographical line.

At the same time, the states of the alliance would announce in public that the attacking Russian forces that have achieved a possible breakthrough should not cross the defined line.

This would prevent, for example, the occupation of Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa and possible genocide. At the same time, the preservation of the central and western parts of Ukraine as an independent, free and viable state would be guaranteed.

Authorization for the protection operation would be sought from the UN General Assembly, where the majority or at least a significant part of the UN member states would support the sending of auxiliary forces.

Considerations, in the background of which there is also secret preparation, are not new.

Chairman of the Defense Committee of the British Parliament Tobias Ellwood proposed the deployment of support and protection forces in November 2022.

– I think that we are moving in the direction of the Ukraine operation. Military aid is getting stronger. We started by asking if a weapon was defensive or offensive. We got over it, Ellwood pointed out already at that time in an interview with Iltalehti.

The deployment of long-range missile systems momentarily changed the balance of the war in such a way that Russia was unable to advance further and control Ukraine’s airspace.

But saving Ukraine required, according to Ellwood, a “slightly more complicated” but logical operation.

He gave an example of how democracies could defend the coastal city of Odessa and Ukraine’s foreign trade.

Ellwood proposed the formation of a British-led naval department, which he felt should have been done earlier.

– We can create a UN safe zone around Odessa. The UN General Assembly would approve its establishment, and we would bypass the Security Council. Once we got a UN mandate, we could have a naval unit there to protect the grain shipments. Britain could lead the navy department, the chairman of the British Defense Committee proposed.

– Yes, that would mean looking the Russians straight in the eye, but NATO’s capabilities far exceed Russia’s, he emphasized.

At the same time, democracies could establish a no-fly zone to protect Ukraine’s population centers and infrastructure.

Macron’s statement raises the auxiliaries’ consideration to the level of state leaders, i.e. top decision-makers. That’s a big change.

It is a new and more pressing strategic communication towards the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin and his warlords respect only strength, and would not dare to attack their stronger.

There would be a lot of talk about the fear of escalation, but in the auxiliary group’s thinking, it is precisely the setting of borders for Russia that would prevent the escalation of the war.

– When there is a legal basis, we will show Russia that this is happening. We tell you that these are international waters and territorial waters of Ukraine. Problems would follow, but they would then be solved without things getting out of control, Ellwood estimated a year and a half ago.

The goal of the countries sending aid forces would be to stop active warfare.

The fighting would end with an armistice, and the Korean model would be born in Ukraine.

There would be no peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, but gradually the armistice line would practically become the border between Russia and Ukraine.

The auxiliary troops sent by the democracies would stay in Ukraine near the armistice line.

Why do state leaders want to convey a message to Putin right now?

The most obvious reasons are the exhaustion of Ukraine’s own resources and the jeopardizing of the world political credibility of democracies.

But there is more to the background.

For example, the military intelligence of Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Germany and Denmark have estimated that Russia might continue its attack after occupying Ukraine and test the durability of NATO’s Article 5 in, for example, the Baltic or Arctic regions.

Domestic foreign and security policy sources tell IL that the conclusions and threat assessments of Finland’s military intelligence do not differ from the assessments of our NATO allies. In Finland, it just hasn’t been customary to talk publicly about the threat of war.

The British assessment has been unchanged since the beginning of the war: Russia wants to occupy all of Ukraine.

When these are the realities, stopping Putin and damming Russian imperialism would happen most easily in Ukraine. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of lives would be saved.

American general Philip M. Breedlove was the commander of NATO’s European forces when Russia occupied Crimea in 2014 and started a war in eastern Ukraine.

Breedlove, who currently teaches strategy, demanded that NATO countries transfer their heavy weapons to Ukraine’s neighbors and make them available to the Ukrainians even before the Russian invasion.

On January 28, 2022, Breedlove analyzed that Putin respects only a concrete military presence in Ukraine.

– The goal is to say to NATO and the European Union: “We are here and responsible. You’re not here, you’re irrelevant’, Breedlove said in his invited guest presentation.

It was less than a month before the start of the war.

In the fall of 2022, Breedlove estimates that Russia would not dare to escalate the war or use nuclear weapons if the NATO countries intervened in the course of the war with conventional weapons.

– I have raised three children and now I am raising my two grandchildren. I present this through parental logic. If you allow bad behavior or – even worse – if you reward bad behavior, more bad behavior will be directed at you. We rewarded bad behavior in 2014. Do we want to reward it again? Breedlove said.

The state leaders of the democracies have begun to approach Breedlove’s strategic thinking, because there is no other option to stop Russia.

Macron deliberately did not specify which countries would send official aid to Ukraine.

Britain would be the most obvious helper, in addition to which, for example, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Baltic countries and France would possibly join.

As a front-line country, Finland would probably not send its soldiers to Ukraine on missions that would include the possibility of getting into direct combat. Instead, Finland would offer material and training support, as it has done until now.

The Finns’ role could later be to secure peace on the armistice line as part of a coalition authorized by the UN.