Putin's new pressure on Biden: If NATO helps Ukraine, there will be no peace
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Moscow of the price it would take to attack Ukraine. He did so during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who guaranteed that Russia does not want any conflict, but asked for something in return for solving current problems: no more NATO deployment to the East.
This implies that Ukraine never joins the Atlantic Alliance, neither as a party nor as an ally.
The Russian chancellor has reviewed the guarantees that the Kremlin has requested from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to guarantee that it will not seek its extension towards Russia's lines.
In this sense, he expressed that "a new expansion of NATO to the east would affect the fundamental interests of our security", he said.
The partners have shielded the opportunity for each nation to join the coalition, "we refer to an article of international law that any state is within its right to choose how to guarantee its legitimate interests in security matters".
This is a warning to Washington, but also to Kiev, where any reference to Russian "interests" in "security matters" runs cold.
Russian President Vladimir Putin complained during the current week of military support for Ukraine and warned NATO not to introduce anti-missile systems in Ukraine.
Lavrov, speaking at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, continued along these lines, warning that "the architecture of strategic stability is rapidly crumbling".
Blame it on the West: "The Alliance's military infrastructure is approaching our borders". "The transformation of our neighboring countries into a platform for confrontation against Russia and the deployment of NATO forces near areas strategically important for our security is categorically unacceptable", declared the Russian president.
A neighbor to arms
In 2014, Russia joined the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine and coordinated the armed phase of a rebellion in Donbas that has seen Kiev fail to control two provincial capitals.
The cost has been staggeringly high: 14,000 casualties. Seven years have passed, and it is increasingly difficult to locate a Ukrainian who does not know someone who has died in the conflict.
Russia has been, unwittingly, the main sponsor of NATO in the neighboring country. 58% of Ukrainians today need Ukraine to join the Atlantic Alliance, as indicated by a survey a month ago.
In March 2014, the same month that Russia annexed Crimea, NATO membership had only 13% support. Since the beginning of the conflict, Ukraine has effectively elected two presidents and combined their personalities based on their rejection of Russia, which unequivocally raided it in 2014 to prevent it from joining the European Union and NATO.
"Now it turns out that this can happen even without entering NATO," notes Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, as Ukraine is now, by definition, an aggrieved nation, ready to host aircraft, ships and military troops, in support to his army.
The expression "frozen conflict" is regularly used to refer to Donbas. Likewise, soldiers and ordinary citizens continue to die.
There are yet to be determined varieties of powers: Ukraine hopes to get more weapons from the United States and is effectively using drones from Turkey, which is also part of NATO, against separatists,
"Russia's military preparations and Putin's request for guarantees for its southwest flank indicate that Russia recognizes the danger of coexisting alongside a country like Ukraine, ready to fortify itself. It is a scenario that Moscow does not want to accept, although not, yet he knows what to do about it, "Baunov said.
Lavrov condemned Ukraine's military supply as it triggers Kiev's mood "instigates Kiev's spirits to sabotage the Minsk peace accords and fuels the illusion of an armed solution".
Ukrainian integrity
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, José Manuel Albares, also met with Lavrov, before whom he safeguarded the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
From Russia, it is seen that Joe Biden — who has arguably concluded the United States' two-decade mission in Afghanistan — is still between the major reorientation towards Asia, which is the new need, and the mission of containing Russia in Europe., which is still a global brand for Washington "According to Putin, tension creates opportunities: these are the lessons of the Cold War," noted Fyodor Lukianov, administrator of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, in the Russian newspaper 'Kommersant' days before.
Russia reproaches Ukraine for sending half of its military — 125,000 officers — to Donbas.
Ukraine criticizes that the Russian assault is inevitable because there are 90,000 soldiers on its lines. Moscow grants a centralization of about 10,000 soldiers for winter movements.
Satellite photos uncovered what the Ukrainian government says are units of the 41st Russian Army assembled in Yelnya, a Russian city 260 kilometers north of the Ukrainian line.
Be that as it may, as in the escalation of the conflict last April, researchers differ on whether there are an adequate number of forces along the line for an intrusion.