The lack of progress in the week-long security talks between the US and Russia indicates that diplomacy has reached a turning point. The main reason for this is many big differences between NATO allies and Russia regarding the security related demands of Russia. During three high-profile meetings, the US rejected Russia’s demands, saying they were “not worthy of consideration”, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying that Russia’s patience with the West was broken. and Russia expects a written reply from them by this week.
Sergei Lavrov also clearly said that although Russia hopes that the current crisis will be resolved with mutual respect and balance between interests. But, Russia will consider adopting several options to respond to this. This means that due to continued delays in reaching an agreement and with little hope at the moment, it may also be possible that Russia can act in a ‘military technical’ way. However, it has to be seen how long it will take and whether during this time some issues can be agreed in Western countries and Russia.
America is very aggressively engaged in creating an environment that Russia is trying to provoke on the pretext of Ukraine and under its guise it can attack Ukraine. Russia has been denying this allegation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the allegations “lies”. Western countries are also looking suspiciously at Russia’s deployment of its troops there for joint exercises with Belarus, as Ukraine shares a 700-mile border with Belarus. Western countries continue to ignore the fact that this joint exercise between the armies of Russia and Belarus was announced in December last year before talks failed.
Russia’s decision to withdraw its diplomats from its embassy in Ukraine is also being seen as a sign of its possible invasion of Ukraine. While it may also happen that due to the ever-increasing tension with Ukraine, Russia has called back its officials from the point of view of security. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the US in December that Russia could take “military-technical steps” in response to unfriendly activities. After this, the statements of Sergei Lavrov have increased the fear of Western countries that Russia is going to attack Ukraine. However, Russian government officials have consistently denied these fears of Western countries.
How did Indigo become a profit making airline amid Corona?
However, in the midst of a hot market of fears in the West, even reputed experts have failed to predict what is going to happen next. On January 21, the talks between the officials of Russia and America in Geneva also did not lead to anything special. It seems that Russia has become very annoyed because diplomatic efforts have not yielded any significant result.
Ukrainian military force
If indeed Russia decides to take military action, there is no doubt that its position in Ukraine will be much stronger. Especially when and when Joe Biden has said very sternly that the option of sending American troops to Ukraine is not being considered at all. There is no doubt that the Ukrainian army has become very strong due to the aid and training of billions of dollars given by the western countries for the last several years. But, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Ukraine does not yet have the power to retaliate if Russia attacks with all its might.
There are 2,55,000 soldiers in the Ukrainian army and in addition there are about nine lakh reserve soldiers. According to the size of a country like Ukraine, this number of soldiers is very high. At the same time, according to the news coming from Western countries, Russia has deployed more than one lakh of its soldiers on the border with Ukraine. There are about three million soldiers in the Russian army, including reserve soldiers.
Apart from these things, as retired Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzynsky told the New York Times, Russia has the power to win the war only by airstrikes without sending a single soldier inside the Ukrainian border. Because the infrastructure of Ukraine will be destroyed only by Russian air strikes. In this respect, Russia has a great advantage.
Despite this advance, Russia realizes that if it takes any military action, it will have to face its serious consequences. These will include steps such as strict sanctions, which are likely to cause a lot of economic blow to Russia. These economic sanctions will be stricter than those imposed after 2014, and Germany may also block the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will be a billion-dollar blow to Russia. Apart from this, troops of America and NATO countries are expected to be deployed in countries located near Russia. This is an issue that Russia has tried to deal with by including it in its list of security related demands.
Russia, US government worried in preparation for attack by encircling Ukraine
If a large-scale war breaks out, it will have serious economic consequences. We have also seen signs of this recently, when the Moscow stock market fell by six percent within two days, the value of the ruble against the dollar decreased by two percent. Whereas after that the value of the ruble against the dollar fell by 77 percent, the biggest fall since the summer of last year.
Russia is increasing pressure
Another thing that is worth noting here is that when Russia prepared its list of security related demands, it might have guessed that most of these demands would be almost impossible for America and Russia, Because it is against the basic principles of the alliance and America will not want to change this alliance at any cost. Furthermore, as Samuel Sharp writes, there has been speculation since 2008 that Ukraine and even Georgia would become members of NATO in the face of Russia’s strong objections, while both countries have ‘Membership Action Plans’ (MAPs). ) was refused.
However, no concrete steps were taken to make both these countries a member of NATO, behind which there is no other reason than to succumb to the pressure of Russia. The tug-of-war between the Western countries and Russia over Ukraine becoming a member of NATO cannot change the reality that at present there is no NATO plan to make Ukraine its member.
Therefore, Russia’s motive may be to prepare Western countries for talks on issues other than Ukraine’s NATO membership by making fierce rhetoric and pressure. Issues such as the deployment of threatened NATO missiles and forces in areas close to Russia, the pre-1997 deployment of NATO forces, as well as the modernization of Ukraine’s military infrastructure, which Russia considers a threat to its security.
We should give credit to Russia that the US has already made it clear that it is ready to negotiate on the issue of missile deployment in countries close to Russia. If Russia manages to exert pressure, as it appears at the moment, it would allow it to set deadlines for the US and NATO countries to respond to their demands, but also Latin America in response to US moves. By expressing its intention to deploy its military forces in Russia, Russia can obtain many such strategic concessions from Western countries, which are favorable to the long-term interests of its security.
However, what kind of concessions the Western countries will give to Russia and whether Russia will be satisfied with it, it can be estimated only if there is any progress in the talks. We can assume that America and NATO will not allow Russia or any other country to pressurize them to decide their policies. But in the atmosphere of tension at this time, Western countries can guarantee to Russia that they are not considering making Ukraine a member of NATO in the coming times. This will reduce the stress to a great extent.
What will actually happen, even one of the experienced experts is not in a position to predict it. But, it is very clear that Russia is not ready to wait endlessly for an agreement related to its security.
Courtesy from www.orfonline.org
,