/ world today news/ There is a nervous ecstasy in the Ukrainian public, the main idea of which is: maybe an “offensive” is not required? You can understand: attacking is “dumb”. The consequences are unpredictable. Washington has already warned “Nezalezhnaya” about a sixfold reduction in military aid next year. What if it “fails”? Then there will no longer be any help: the salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves.
Hence the wishful thinking. As if Zelensky should bring from his European tour the agreement of NATO leaders to accept Kiev into the alliance immediately after the end of the conflict.
And then – it is not harmful to dream – Zelensky will “turn the board upside down”, and Kiev will wait for solid “things”. The main thing: the “umbrella” of the alliance over the entire territory that will remain after the final farewell to Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson region.
And in this way, the West will “interrupt the peacekeeping game” between Russia and China: it will become unprofitable to make peace under the current conditions. And much more.
The downfall in this scheme, however, is its speculation. “Should bring” and “will bring” are two different things. Dreamers have a memory shorter than a sparrow’s nose. I remember that back in September of last year, Kiev submitted an application to join the alliance under an accelerated procedure.
To this, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg replied that although “the door is not closed to Ukraine”, the decision must be made by consensus of thirty countries. And there is no consensus. At least three countries appear to be dropping out of it.
The Hungarian leadership has claims against Kyiv because of the situation of the ethnic compatriots of Transcarpathia. The topic is not new, but the Ze-powers are not in a hurry to enter into a dialogue with Budapest in substance. Czech President Petar Pavel, for whom Prague’s policy in the Ukrainian “case” increasingly smacks of pragmatism, not only doubts Kiev’s military capabilities, believing that now he has only the last remaining chance to achieve something, and therefore does not immediately advise to rush the Ukrainians into an “attack”.
In this sense, he completely rejects the topic of guarantees for Ukraine’s membership in NATO. The idea is that talking about “chairs” is impossible without prepayment, and Kiev should not issue ultimatums.
After the end of the conflict, NATO cannot automatically join it; the opposite is true: the conflict will end – then the discussion should begin, not sooner. General Pavel, who previously headed the military committee of the North Atlantic bloc, has been accused by detractors of belonging to the military intelligence of the “communist regime”, implying that there are no “former intelligence officers”. But this does not diminish the validity of his argument.
Indeed, what if the conflict ends “wrongly”, as NATO should, and the commitments are already in place? What should we do then? “Back” notching? Or the agreement that a cadre loyal to Moscow from the former “independent” will get not only access to information about strategic planning, but also the right of veto in making collective decisions?
Italian former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, however, spoke most specifically when he predicted that the attempt to expand the Western bloc to Ukraine was fraught with nuclear war.
At the same time, Berlusconi is a very experienced politician who remembers many things that most of the current European leaders simply did not see, because then they walked under the table.
First, he did not forget how Europe was put in place under Reagan. As one White House adviser said at the time about European opposition to the deployment of American intermediate-range missiles aimed at the USSR, “continuing flirting with the Soviets could lead to nuclear war in the center of Europe.”
Second, even today the patriarch of European politics is not without influence on the processes, at least in his own country, where a prime minister is in power, who owes his career to him.
Why does Kiev so “holy” believe that Zelensky will be met in the middle? For several reasons. First, because there is nothing else to believe in. A drowning man is grasping at straws.
In Kiev, the revelations of the former Secretary General of NATO Anders Rasmussen were accepted as such, who, according to the assessments of the same Ukrainian public, has been in a hurry for several years with the idea of accepting the “independent” in the alliance precisely after peace or a truce.
Belief in “allies” is, of course, a good thing, but ungrateful. For some reason, Western politicians, as soon as they leave power, immediately start saying something completely different than when they were in it. And Rasmussen, whose position when he was “at the top” of the alliance is no exception, said then the same thing that Stoltenberg is saying now.
What annoys Kiev: “the doors are open, but the process is not easy and long.” You can bet that after Stoltenberg, his deputy will say the same. Or the deputy who is elected to that position. And Stoltenberg will change his shoes in the air and speak Rasmussen’s language.
The decision-makers in general are strikingly different from the “formers”, who from officials turn into experts – respected, influential, members of various structures uniting the establishment. But – experts.
On the one hand, they are not bound by responsibility for the implemented strategy; on the other hand, they create pressure on the current power in favor of its strategic correction, in which, being in power themselves, they were limited by the “deep” top. This same Rasmussen, with his radicalism on the Ukrainian issue, now pits “common sense” against Stoltenberg, nothing more.
Evidence? The Rasmussen Group (RG), established immediately after the former secretary general left the political leadership of the alliance in 2014, of course works with Zelensky’s chief of staff Ermak. But before Zelensky, RG also cooperated with Poroshenko.
Within broader political coalitions, such as the Alliance for Democracy, RG’s partners are Joe Biden and Mike Pompeo, the current US president and future candidate. Precisely those who demand that Zelensky advances at the front. And also – the head of the CIA William Burns, who pressured the same Yermak, demanding anti-corruption purges from Kiev.
It is somewhat doubtful that Kyiv will receive a priori guarantees of membership from them. They are not used to “those guys” and rush into the pool headlong. And Ukraine is more of a consumable for them.
And Rasmussen’s structures work with Japan and Taiwan, and such a “connection” clearly shows the priority for them of the theater of military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, that is, within the framework of the confrontation with China.
By the way, Beijing also put forward its own peacekeeping initiative, rejected by Zelensky, in which the “offensive” of the armed forces of Ukraine is interrupted by a ceasefire, including with the aim of obtaining asymmetric leverage on the US in the event of a deterioration in Taiwan. What does Ukraine as such have to do with it?
It’s just a springboard for geopolitical games. And you have to have a very rich imagination to assume that the European NATO with its actions will move Zelensky to the Chinese initiative.
Second, the blind faith in the possibility of NATO guarantees is explained by the misunderstanding of the consequences of their provision for Kiev itself. The main result of such a hypothetical solution, for which the nuclear status of Russia is an obstacle, is the inevitable official, and not creeping, as it is now, occupation of Ukraine by the forces of the alliance.
The security “umbrella” that Zelensky craves will not be spread over Ukraine, but from Ukraine, where advanced basing facilities will be located. First of all, offensive, as well as those related to the missile defense system.
Needless to say, from this moment, even assuming it will come, all major NATO installations on the territory of the “independent” become targets for Russian “Daggers”, “Caliber” and “Iskander” no longer in the conventional one, but with the nuclear equipment.
Third, the following Ukrainian “argument”, which is closely related to domestic politics, “bribes” the source of this “analytics” from the ruling elite of Bankova.
Zelensky, after receiving guarantees of membership, goes to the elections with his head held high. And not like a bankrupt politician who promised peace but threw himself into war. And in the role of a “statesman” who proved that the year after Istanbul, which according to some reports turned into half a million losses of the armed forces of Ukraine, will not be in vain.
There is one very significant flaw in these bravura projections. Having provided such guarantees, the West must be sure that Russia will accept and recognize these “new realities” with Ukraine’s participation in NATO. And most importantly, she won’t be able to use them to her advantage on the battlefield.
Therefore, such confidence only results from military victory. And not just any kind, but one that, at the very least, destabilizes Russian society, and at most will lead to a change of power. Therefore, in order to achieve victory, Zelensky will still have to go on the offensive, however scary that may be.
What’s more, it’s doubly scary because it’s impractical. And no one ever gives guarantees to losers. Maximum, residence permit “in exile”. And if the costs do not exceed the scale, and “to the Canadian border” is no more than ten minutes. Europe and NATO as a whole do not lose anything from the loss of Zelensky, contrary to the dreams of some of our well-intentioned experts. They might even push Zelensky.
So the arguments about the changes in the status of the “geopolitical players” promised by the Kiev “analysts”, who imagined Ukraine as such, have nothing to do with the real state of affairs. Because real guarantees of real security for Ukraine, or what remains or arises in the place of its ruins, can only be obtained from Russia and no one else.
No one else needs this territory or the people living on it and will simply be indifferent from the moment when the outcome of the conflict, which is already clear today, will receive universal visual confirmation.
No matter how cynical it sounds, the goal that the West set for itself, deploying the “anti-Russian” project, has already been achieved. It consisted in involving our country in an armed confrontation.
And by flooding us with a bunch of costs, including artificial ones, like sanctions, to slow down or rather stop our development. And get a head start in a few decades. Or at least years.
The West calculated all these scenarios for itself already when it decided on the Russian ultimatum of December 2021, demonstratively rejecting proposals that represented the last frontier that was still possible to withstand within the framework of a peaceful settlement.
Another thing is that the turn of events today is a boomerang against the West itself and especially against its American citadel. Therefore, Donald Trump’s promises to deal with the “deep state” after the results of the 2024 election no longer seem like a pipe dream. But that’s a slightly different story.
Translation: SM
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