Back Story Newsletter
Good morning,
Ukraine-Russia Crisis
This is a key day for the escalating crisis between Russia and Ukraine, and U.S. Sec of State Antony Blinken meets his Russia counter-part Sergei Lavrov today in Geneva.
The Russians will demand a response, and get one, on their concerns about NATO enlargement and missiles in Europe and deployment of Western troops near their borders.
NATO won’t be told by Russia who can join in the future, or who can’t. But the U.S. is prepared to discuss troop rotations close to Russia, and even missile deployments in Europe, including Russia’s staging of threatening missiles which violated treaties including the INF.
But it is clear this crisis was manufactured by the Kremlin to take control of Ukraine. Ukraine is not attacking Russia, and NATO is not threatening Russia’s security. As Blinken pointed out in a speech yesterday, NATO countries only border 6% of Russia’s flank. And Russia he said aims to turn former Soviet States into puppets.
British Foreign Sec Liz Truss said “the Kremlin haven't learnt the lessons of history," she said. "They dream of recreating the Soviet Union, or a kind of greater Russia, carving up territory based on ethnicity and language. They claim they want stability while they work to threaten and destabilize others."
This boils down to Russia not willing now to recognize Ukraine is a real country, and the outrageous notion by Putin, that somehow this independent nation of 44 million people, should be under his control.
Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, was a nuclear nation, and agreed to give up those weapons at the Budapest Summit December 5, 1994. The US, Great Britain and Russia welcomed the decision of the Kyiv regime to accede to the non-proliferation agreement and pledged, among other things, to respect the independence and "existing borders" of Ukraine.
Putin has spoken about the plight of ethnic Russians who were left in former Soviet countries after the break up of the Soviet union. But many of those Russians now enjoy higher salaries and better lives in European Union linked countries like Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and don’t want to live under the Kremlins shadow.
And the ethnic Russians in Ukraine, that Putin claims need protecting, have in fact been killed by Russian backed forces, 14 thousand dead and 3 million of them displaced by the 8 years of fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine seizing and annexing Crimea and fuelling a civil war in the East.
Russia will likely invade Ukraine again because its attempts to isolate the nation, strangle its economy, intimidate and even assassinate its political leaders, and make it into a failed state haven’t worked.
Putins brutal efforts in Ukraine have only served to drive it closer to European integration and increase the thirst for NATO protection and membership.
As Antony Blinken rightly pointed out “Russia justifies its actions by claiming that Ukraine somehow poses a threat to its security. This turns reality on its head,” he said.
“Whose troops are surrounding whom?" he asked. "Which country has claimed another’s territory through force? Which military is many times the size of the other? Which country has nuclear weapons? Ukraine isn’t the aggressor here. Ukraine is just trying to survive."
Russia is conducting huge naval and ground military exercises around Ukraine, with roughly 120 thousand forces staged on Ukraines borders. Now it has announced in February those drills will stretch across every body of water bordering Russia and involve more than 140 warships, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, 10,000 troops and 60 aircraft.
All of this sabre rattling is meant to menace Ukraine and Europe, while officially Russia denies it plans any invasion, as it did in 2014 when it first rolled into Ukraine after the pro Kremlin Ukrainian President was overthrown and fled to Russia.
And Western powers will be forced to take massive sanctions on the Russia economy, bolster NATO forces rotating through Eastern European NATO nations, and through training and equipment conduct a proxy guerrilla war in Ukraine that will cost Ukraines and Russians many lives.
Putin needs to give up his delusional dominance of the ‘near abroad’ and understand an attack on Ukraine won’t bring Russia more security, but far less and even Putins own regime will be threatened if his economy fails.
Russia’s and Europe’s post World War 2 security order is on the line in this meeting with Blinken and Lavrov today. High stakes diplomacy to watch carefully, as arms now flow into Ukraine from countries like Britain and America to make Russia pay dearly if as President Biden has clarified, “any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion” and “Russia will pay a heavy price”.
I will write more on Ukraine if there are developments over the weekend.
On Back Story w/ Dana Lewis podcast we have now gone live with our latest segment ‘Covid, What Comes Next’. It’s a great discussion with two epidemiologists on this fantasy notion the pandemic is coming to an end. I found it a great reality check on whats next, and the dangers ahead. Here’s the link;
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/9919760
Have a good weekend everyone!
Dana