Speaking at a press conference on Monday, May 31, Secretary General of the Alliance Jens Stoltenberg said, “Russia has been willing to use military force against neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine… And this is one of the main reasons why NATO over the last years has increased the readiness of our forces and also why we have deployed battlegroups to the eastern part of the Alliance”. According to Stoltenberg, NATO is there to protect and defend all Allies.
The Alliance Chief went on to say, "What we see is a pattern of Russian behaviour where Russia over the last years has invested heavily in new modern military capabilities, from conventional to nuclear weapon systems”.
The statement made by Alliance Chief Jens Stoltenberg came as his response to Defense Minister Shoigu of Russia who had announced that the Russian Federation would create 20 new military formations in the country’s west this year to counter what he claims is a growing threat from NATO. The western military district of the Russian Federation borders on Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic countries and Finland.
Sergei Shoigu said it would be an answer to “an increase in US and NATO activities near Russia as a source of grievance, including more US strategic bomber sorties as well as NATO naval deployments...”
The new military formations will be armed with sophisticated weapons and equipment. In all, Russia plans to supply 2,000 units of modern equipment to its troops deployed on its western border over the current year. Military exercises will be held there, too.
In early May, The New York Times reported with reference to the high-ranking sources in the U.S. administration that Russia had withdrawn a few thousands of its troops from the border with Ukraine but at least 80,000 remain which is the largest amount of forces accumulated there by the Kremlin since the annexation of the Crimea in 2014.
While interviewed by the German publication Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that new escalation in the situation is possible any moment till the end of September as long as the Russian military exercise “West-2021” is underway. More than that, he believes that Belarus may become a source of hostility toward Ukraine, as well.
“In fact, there are many variants of combat operations including naval provocations the Russian Federation is capable of launching”, Zelenskyy stressed. The Ukrainian President did not rule out the possibility of a Russian attack from the side of the occupied Donbas. Answering the question about the probability of blitzkrieg by the Russian Federation, Zelenskyy agreed that the lightning offensive could be launched from the east, the south and even from the north.
“For instance, now the situation is very explosive in Belarus. And it is our north border. We assume that Russia and Belarus are negotiating an important geopolitical deal and possibly a defense agreement, too. If it is so, then the influence of Russia and its control over Belarus’s armed forces will increase considerably. In that case, Ukraine is threatened from both sides”, said the Ukrainian President.
Ukrainian journalist Vitaliy Portnikov expressed his view about possible Russian offensive from the side of Belarus, “Now it’d be a great illusion to regard the Lukashenko regime as a sort of insurance against Russia’s attack on Ukraine from the territory of Belarus. As a matter of fact, Lukashenko has never been such insurance. He used his relations with Ukraine and Georgia to bargain with Kremlin. In reality, he was always ready to exchange our security for his remaining in power or for the most banal handouts for his regime”.
Could Russia attempt a new wave in escalation? In answering this question, Yuri Romanenko, a military expert and an ex-deputy chief of the General Staff, argues that the Kremlin has no accomplishments whatsoever save military ones. It can oppose the West neither in the economy nor in social issues. However, the bow string is tight and there is great temptation to shoot an arrow and reach a target which Putin sets before himself. The target is the building of the Putin “Soviet Union” which would embrace all former republics save perhaps the Baltic countries. In his plan, Ukraine is the central link.
Yuri Romanenko continues, “We’ve managed to gain some time and therefore must use it. It’s important. Both government and society must use time effectively so the country could move ahead in all issues connected with the defense capability of Ukraine ranging from reforms in the security and defense sector and ending with strengthening the military potential of the state.”
The newspaper Voice of Ukraine
