Ukraine hopes that this time Western support will be higher than in 2014 / Article

The issue of Ukraine was also one of the main topics of discussion during the week-long meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Riga, where both NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made it very clear that such concerns did exist, and that if Russia will carry out an attack on Ukraine, this will have serious consequences.

A video conference between the presidents of Russia and the United States also took place this week, after which the White House has repeatedly threatened with a “strong response”. Meanwhile, Kiev itself is assessing whether there is a real threat from Russia, whether it is more of a blackmail attempt and whether there will be a real commitment from the West to help.

Concerns over attack in January

Information from Ukrainian and Western intelligence that Russia may have deployed more than 90,000 troops on Ukraine’s border has echoed in recent weeks in published satellite images taken near relatively eastern Ukraine and the Crimea.

Videos have also been published on social networks showing the movement of Russian armored vehicles along railway lines. According to Ukraine’s defense minister, Russian forces could reach the highest level of readiness by the end of January, but the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, named as many as 175,000 troops in the Russian military operation.

Due to these tensions, a video conference of the presidents of the United States and Russia was held on Tuesday, in which Joe Biden was spoke clear language.

“He told Putin directly that if Russia invaded Ukraine further, the US and European allies would respond with strong economic tools. We will supply additional material for the protection of the Ukrainians to what we are already providing and strengthen our NATO allies in the eastern flank with additional capacity in response to this escalation, ”said Jake Sullivan, US President’s Adviser on National Security.

The Kremlin denies the allegations

The Kremlin categorically rejects the concerns expressed by the West, continues to recall that it is allowed to act as it wishes on its territory, and blames Kiev for provocations in eastern Ukraine.

“Russian soldiers are on their territory and no one is threatened,” President Putin said. Putin said, “You Americans are worried about our battalions in Russia thousands of kilometers from the United States, but we are really worried about our security and Russia’s security in a global sense,” said Yuri Ushakov, an adviser to Russia’s president.

Meanwhile, Kiev is trying to understand how real the latest threats from Russia are and how resilient the West’s determination to act if necessary is.

Russia could be disconnected from the SWIFT payment system

According to Oleksiy Haran, a professor at the Kiev Mohyla Academy of the National University of Ukraine, on the LTV program “Panorama of the World”, the prevailing view is that the Western position now seems to be stronger than in 2014, when Western The MH17 passenger plane was shot down by the system, killing almost 300 people, mostly Western nationals.

“The West is quite reluctant, but then it was forced to engage in sanctions that have been extended and that have forced us to bow down year after year and say ‘thank you for extending’ and so on. ‘But now, from what we hear, the West is more ready to make decisive decisions.

So I think it should deter Putin, not only from talking about a large-scale war, but also from limited military operations, such as the attempt to seize Mariupol or, for example, Kharkov, which is very close to the border, because I think the West will decide on serious sanctions. “

The professor believes that the West is now ready to consider even sanctions such as the disconnection of Russia from the international payment system SWIFT, which could be devastating for the Russian economy, although this is not publicly discussed.

Russia’s guarantees cannot be relied on

Therefore, given the high cost of military escalation, Professor Haran does not rule out the possibility that the current border tensions are more related to diplomatic games.

I do not rule out that Putin is currently carrying out the same blackmail as he did in the spring of this year, squeezing out Nord Stream 2, which is now being certified.

Now his cunning idea is, I quote, ‘to get legal guarantees that NATO will not expand eastwards’. However, when I hear from Russia about some legal guarantees, it sounds very cynical!

From Russia, which itself violated the agreements they signed, not only the Budapest Memorandum, but also the bilateral agreement between Russia and Ukraine, which clearly defined the border issue, or the agreement violated by Russia on the Sea of ​​Azov. And now Russia is demanding some kind of guarantee from the West! ”