IKENNA EMEWU
You already know that there are skirmishes in the Black Sea and Baltic region between Russia and Ukraine and the smouldering cauldron over Russia planning to invade Ukraine or not.
But what many may not have known is why.
As you read a lot of reports, especially those that have inclination or sympathy for the US, and the entire US media, what you get is that Russia makes trouble and encroaches on the sovereignty of Ukraine, threatening war at her border.
Russia planning to invade Ukraine, no doubt is a gross infraction of the sovereignty of the state. But Russia has however denied the allegation.
This crisis already has a bad history of when a Russian surface-to-air missile struck down a civil airline belonging to Malaysia over Ukraine in 2014. Up till now, the powerful countries never said anything to punish Russia for that mass murder of 283 passengers and crew members.
The Malaysian Airline flight, MH17 had departed Amsterdam on its way to Kuala Lumpur when it was downed over Ukraine on July 17. A Dutch-led investigation found that the civil airliner was shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine. Why Malaysia or Holland were the targets of that bloody attack is not known yet.
Russia therefore, insists that it would not allow Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
But why should Russia be the one to decide for Ukraine about the union to join?
The present plan is that Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the European Union looks imminent.
For some good reasons, according to Russia, that would not augur well for her interest.
Apart from interference in the past eight years, Ukraine and Russia share about 410km stretch of border. That is quite huge that the security of one impacts the other.
Many East European countries that are immediate neighbours of Russia and those just separated from Russia by a country are members of NATO. They include; Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Estonia.
While some of them like Latvia and Estonia are little countries and immediate neighbours that Russia might not worry about, Ukraine is the largest neighbour. The attempts of Russia to safeguard herself as they always claim have led them to annex Crimea, a tiny island by the Black Sea to the south of Russia and sandwiched between it and Ukraine.
According to information on the NATO website www.nato.int, Russia pushes four major claims in its opposition to Ukraine joining it and they include
· NATO’s presence in the Baltic region is dangerous
· NATO missile defence threatens Russian security
· NATO is aggressive and a threat to Russia
· NATO enlargement threatens Russia
Beyond whatever else you can hear or read, these four points are just the summary and plank of the quarrel.
Russia therefore amasses about 130,000 troops at the Ukrainian border insisting that it must not join NATO, and its only acceptable offer to move the troops back is NATO dropping her plan to take Ukraine. That is an offer the U.S especially would not accept.
The grand fear is that since the U.S arch-rival of Russia maintains military bases in all NATO countries as of right, being a member if Ukraine joins, the U.S will next day mobilise its weapons, tanks, troops and all like in Poland and other NATO state members around to the Russian border. Russia fears that that would uncomfortably hedge her to a tight corner and make her vulnerable to U.S hostility without a hiding place.
In its own highhandedness, Russia seems to be pushing that Ukraine, especially the Russian-speaking Ukrainians return to Russia from where they carved out at the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Russia keeps to her argument that NATO’s suspension of practical cooperation with Russia undermines her security.
With a history of two illegitimate military invasions of Libya and Kosovo, Russia can’t trust NATO’s assurances that there would be no problem for her if they get so close in Ukraine.
Other claims by Russia as published on the NATO website is that:
· NATO whips up ‘hysteria’ over Russia’s exercises
· NATO is a U.S. geopolitical project
· NATO has tried to isolate or marginalise Russia
· NATO should have been disbanded at the end of the Cold War
However, after the U.S and some other NATO members asked their citizens in Ukraine to leave the country last week, it will take extraordinary diplomatic sanity and nicety to avert a total collapse of the region into a full-blown war that would essentially be between Russia and the U.S, soonest.
PHOTO: Google Images
