Kremlin wants Yalta 2

The NATO headquarters is hosting these days meetings of the Alliance member states’ defense ministers on the eve of the Warsaw summit on July 8-9. Among the most important topics is, of course, the Ukrainian question because Russia’s aggression in the Donbas and Crimea is one of the most serious challenges to international law and security system. The Kremlin’s aggressive policy in eastern Ukraine is in fact an illustration of its imperial ambitions. This is why NATO must respond. And there already are some positive signals. The Alliance has been stepping up military expenditure (in 2015 it was not reduced, for the first time in the past few years, but increased by 1.5 percent) and is deploying a 40,000-strong NATO Response Force in Europe. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said at a press conference that the Alliance’s defense ministers intend to recommend the Warsaw summit to make an important decision. “We will agree on the deployment by rotation of four robust multinational battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. We will take decisions on a tailored presence for the south-east region, with a land element built around a multinational framework brigade in Romania,” he said.

Asked by journalists about a growing threat from Russia, Stoltenberg said: “We are looking into how we can increase our presence in the Black Sea region. We have already increased our presence… with more naval presence and more exercises.” The NATO secretary general added that ministers would discuss “NATO’s further adaptation to the challenges from the South.”

Stoltenberg also mentioned the upcoming meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, noting: “We will assess the latest security developments, Ukraine’s progress on the path of reforms, and stepping up our support.”

Undoubtedly, security in Europe and worldwide directly depends on whether the Russian aggression will be stopped and peace be achieved in Ukraine. Therefore, it is important for our state to come closer to the North Atlantic alliance and take part in joint programs and exercises. The Ukrainian leadership is taking certain actions and making important statements to this effect. For example, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andrii Parubii said the other day: “I am convinced that Ukraine’s accession to NATO during a Russian aggression is a strategic direction of our development. And this direction has no alternative. For us, the Bucharest summit’s decision on the admission of Ukraine to NATO remains in force. Parliament is sure that Ukraine will be a NATO member. This may be a question of time, but it is crucial for Ukraine not only in the military, but also in the strategic and geopolitical dimensions.”

Ukraine is carrying out army reforms, albeit at a slow pace, and adopting very important documents, such as Strategy of National Security and Strategic Defense Bulletin, which illustrate Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO. One of the negative signals is that President Petro Poroshenko has failed to appoint Ukraine’s representative at the Alliance in more than a year. Nor can the Ukrainian authorities show any serious progress in fighting corruption and establishing the rule of law. And this means that Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration may fall hostage to domestic problems. This has already happened before, when, after Yevhen Marchuk, as National Security and Defense Council Secretary and Minister of Defense, had made a number of reformatory efforts aimed at bringing Ukraine closer to NATO, the then president Leonid Kuchma ordered after a meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2004 that the formula about this country’s entry to NATO be immediately withdrawn from the Military Doctrine.

We should also remember that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the then French president Nicolas Sarkozy in fact blocked, under pressure of Russia, the granting of the MAP to Ukraine and Georgia at the NATO Bucharest summit in 2008. For this reason, not only the Ukrainian leadership, but also NATO member states should not make the same old mistakes, for they should understand the role of Ukraine in securing peace on the continent.

The Day spoke with Pavel FELGENHAUER, a military observer at the Russian Novaya gazeta, about the current relations between Russia and the West, the prospects of halting the Russian aggression, and the “Plan B” for Ukraine at the NATO headquarters.

What do you think of the current relations between Russia and NATO?

“The face-off, which has been at the level of response in the past two years, since the Crimea events, is being institutionalized now. This includes a defense buildup and deployment of battalions, which is more important from the political angle because almost all Alliance members will take part in this.

“The Russian side is also getting ready for a ‘big war’ which may or may not occur. They have begun to thoroughly check the possibility of a mass-scale mobilization for a big European or world war. This is viewed as a real, albeit not an indispensable, of course, possibility.

“Both sides are taking the prepared positions and working out more or less realistic variants of hostilities on the European theater of operations. Clearly, there is very little danger for Bulgaria and Romania, but a hotbed of a potential war is being created around Kaliningrad and Baltic states.”

Why does Russia want this face-off? Does it wish to vie with the West in a cold war spirit?

“In Putin’s opinion, Russia has certain interests and sovereignty to defend, while the West wants to ‘grab ours.’ Russia is ‘on the defensive.’ Both sides are saying in this situation that they are defending themselves.”

What instruments does the West, including NATO, have to influence Russia, as far as observation of the Minsk Agreements is concerned?

“It’s clear to everybody that, although ‘Minsk’ was signed, it will not be observed because it is impossible. The Minsk Agreements are a thing to paper over a widening crack. The strategic goals of Russia and Ukraine are quite obvious – Russian leaders keep saying in public that ‘Ukrainians are Russians,’ ‘the same nation,’ that Ukraine should be a constituent part of Russia one way or another. Therefore, for Russia, carrying out the Minsk Agreements means transition to a situation when Ukraine is barred from entering Europe forever and is completely orientated to Russia – it will have limited sovereignty, as Warsaw Pact counties once did.

“Naturally, nobody is going to disband the forces formed in the Donbas – the so-called ‘militia’ has been in fact integrated into the Russian armed forces. It is, incidentally, a two-corps tank army. Therefore, what is this ‘Minsk’ all about, for this document calls for overall peace and an autonomy with its own ‘people’s police’ in the Donbas? Minsk 2 is a ‘stick’ with which all beat each other by turns. This resembles the UN Security Council’s Middle East resolutions which everybody accepts and says they must be fulfilled, but they haven’t been fulfilled for 50 years on end.”

If the West is aware of this all, do you think it is preparing an alternative?

“If there is a document, it is better to cling to it than to have none at all. In all probability, nobody is preparing an alternative to Minsk – they think Russia has understood that it will not cope with Ukraine. In general, Western leaders and experts are saying that they do not understand Russia, that it is unpredictable, etc. In reality, Russia is predictable and understandable enough, Russian actions have a very clear logic, and decisions are made according to the latter. If they can’t understand this logic, it doesn’t mean that it is absent. For this reason, they cannot understand the likely actions. Besides, it is better to say that ‘we’ll make a deal now’ than to admit that no deal is possible.

“But Russia wants ‘Yalta 2.’ It is possible to hold a conference at the same place, sit down around the table, spread a map of Europe, and draw lines. One can bargain for who will get what piece. Of course, by their logic, Ukraine is ‘ours,’ while Chisinau can be exchanged for Vilnius. In other words, Russia is prepared to make a deal with the West, like Molotov did with Ribbentrop, but this kind of an imperialist partition of the world is impossible today. Even if some Western leaders wanted this, they would be unable to do so because they would fail to have this formally signed and ratified in parliament. It is for this reason that Russia-West contradictions are insolvable.

“Russia has a lot of friends in the West, whom we pay because there is a hope that they will help us come to terms and solve some problems. But I don’t think they will succeed. Even if they do, we should remember that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact ended up very badly for both sides.”