The suggestion is the clearest explanation yet as to why Russian troops have been massing troops near the Ukrainian border.
By Nataliya Vasilyeva, RUSSIA CORRESPONDENT andJoe Barnes, BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT
24 November 2021 •
Russia will attack Ukraine unless Nato gives cast-iron guarantees that Kyiv will never be allowed to join the alliance, a Kremlin-linked foreign policy expert has said.
The suggestion by Fyodor Lukyanov is the clearest explanation yet as to why Russia has been amassing troops near the Ukrainian border, leading to a rise in East-West tensions and fears of an imminent invasion.
Mr Lukyanov – chairman of the board of the Russian Foreign Affairs Council, which advises the Kremlin – made it clear in an article published on Wednesday that Moscow would be seeking more than just verbal reassurances from Nato.
“This recent round of escalation in Eastern Europe showed that the old principles of security on the continent are no longer working,” he wrote.
He warned of a “new conflict” if Nato expanded further east.
“Russia will have to change the system and draw new ‘red lines,” he said, mentioning a post-war deal between the Soviet Union and Finland, under which Moscow recognised Finland’s independence in return for Helsinki’s neutrality in the Cold War.
He added that the “gambit that led to the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia”, when Moscow invaded after claiming to have been provoked, “could well be replicated” in Ukraine.
Nato ‘is ready’
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has described the troop movement near the border as a deterrent against a Ukrainian government offensive in areas of the country held by Moscow-backed separatists.
Conflict Intelligence Team, a respected collective of Russian investigative journalists, put out a report on Wednesday based on open-sourced data that showed the Russian military moving tanks to new locations close to the Ukrainian border.
“We agree with estimates by (foreign) intelligence that Russia would be ready for a possible operation against Ukraine’s government-controlled territories no earlier than the beginning of next year,” it said.
In Brussels, Brigadier General Simon Doran, of the US Marine Corps, said of Nato’s preparation for a potential Russian invasion: “We exist to be ready at all times.”
He told The Telegraph: “Hopefully, we’re not only deterring potential adversaries, we’re also reassuring all of our partners and allies that if called upon, we will be here.
“We are absolutely ready to combat any aggression from anybody globally.”
Ukraine this week held military exercises in the region bordering Russian-occupied Crimea to test the latest additions to its arsenal, including Turkish-made combat drones and American Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Lt Gen Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, thanked Ukraine’s international allies for providing state-of-the-art weapons to fend off a possible Russian invasion.
Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, added that he had been briefed about Russia’s military movements near his country’s border in recent meetings with his British and US counterparts.
“We’re aware of the risks,” he said, adding that he had received assurances that Ukraine “won’t be left alone.”
Commenting on the reports of the Javelin missiles tested in Ukraine, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that “the situation in the east remains very, very worrying.”
Russia held snap military drills the same day in the Black Sea near Crimea, involving three warships and ten fighter jets, the Russian military said.
Blackmail by a dirty fascist regime which only attacks non-Nato members.
“In Brussels, Brigadier General Simon Doran, of the US Marine Corps, said of Nato’s preparation for a potential Russian invasion: “We exist to be ready at all times.”
He told The Telegraph: “Hopefully, we’re not only deterring potential adversaries, we’re also reassuring all of our partners and allies that if called upon, we will be here.
“We are absolutely ready to combat any aggression from anybody globally.”
So, is the reader to assume that Ukraine will be protected by Nato ‘if called upon”?
If so, why aren’t they moving into Ukraine now?
If they were, they surely wouldn’t tell CNN.
Here is a comment in DT comments from a putler jackboot licker:
Robert Griffiths
“The loss of the Ukraine leaves the heart of Russia exposed in the West. The Russians remember only too well what happened after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in 1918 and Hitler’s invasion in 1941. Russia cannot allow the Ukraine to become part of NATO and NATO would be pushing its luck to try to make it a member. The Ukraine has to become a “Buffer State”, vital to both sides, with neither a Russian nor NATO presence within its borders.”
My reply :
Pure kremprop. Ukraine is an independent unitary state. Kyiv was a Christian civilisation when Muscovy was still a swamp. Ukraine suffered 360 years of genocide, torture, starvation and Russification. No nation on earth lost so many to one aggressor. Russia must stop invading other nations as a pretext for its own imperialist ambitions. Do you believe all imperial powers have the right to take back any of their former conquests whenever they feel like it, or do you reserve that right exclusively for Russia’s fascist regime?
And not a word from him about what Ukrainians would want. It gets really frustrating to listen to. Ukraine has been voting 30 years for separation from Moskovia. How many years will it take for some people to finally accept that? Who cares what Putin wants? I haven’t seen any polls from Moskovia about taking Ukraine either. Also I am still waiting for someone to explain to me why Putin wants MORE territory when he already has more than the EU and USA combined.
The far left have brains that are wired like sociopaths. They are able to cry crocodile tears when a convicted strangler and a convicted paedophile are taken out by Kyle Rittenhouse, but simultaneously they yearn to burn him at the stake for his perfectly reasonable actions. He killed in self defence, simultaneously ridding the world of verminous scum and performing a valuable public service.
The far right on the other hand, have now had years to rehearse their schtick. They are able to summon endless waves of bogus sympathy for those poor, humiliated Russians who were treated so cruelly by Ukraine – at least in their demented fascist imagination.
The Telegraph is one of the finest papers of record in the world, but its subscribers (you have to be a paid subscriber to comment) are crawling with filthy kremtrolls. No doubt some of the subs are paid by Savushkina Ulitse, but sadly most of them are volunteers: alt-right/kremkip scum who were brought over to putler by an evil pig: Nigel Farage. The even more vile Tucker Carlson does the same job in America. As do Alex Jones, Laura Ingraham and Michael Savage.
Re your comment about ‘polls from Moskovia’, the kremlin has been teeing up its cold-hearted followers for an attack on Ukraine for some time. Its domestic propagandists have been calling for putler to start bombing Ukrainian cities all this year. Rather than being repulsed by large scale bloodshed, the cunts are excited by it.
I don’t see the far right sympathizing for fascist Putin. Our Congress is virtually unified against that KGB zit.
Anyone supporting Putin is usually and immediately scolded by the population. But to your point, the 1% make 99% of the noise, logical people understand that.
Good reply!
Better join as soon as possible then so the World and ordinary russians can see how spineless their leaders actually are.
Mafia land has already attacked Ukraine, twice even. So what? Mafia land talks big but carries little sticks.
It has plenty of far left, but I did not know that Congress had any far right. Which ones are?
Rand Paul; outed by John McCain as a Russian agent, does indeed fit that description but isn’t he in the senate? I assume that you accept the word of John?
Call it the far right/alt right/populist right; whatever you like. They have a huge following, especially in the media. Carlson is the biggest and it’s one hell of a lot more than 1%. They ALL support putler. The only exception being PIS in Poland. Unless you know otherwise?