On February 21, after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), he sent troops into those regions to carry out what he called “peacekeeping functions.” This was undertaken in response to actions that Russia characterized as a Ukranian government offensive.
Ukraine had a successful weekend. significantly increased fireDPR and LPR residents were targeted because they allegedly launched 1,600 projectiles on civilians and killed them. Nikolai Pankov was the deputy Russian defense minister. He stated that Ukraine has 60,000 troopsUkraine has denied the intention to attack LPR and DPR.
Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary General characterized “the decision of the Russian Federation to be a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and inconsistent with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Claiming that Russia had begun an “invasion of Ukraine,” U.S. President Joe Biden has imposed a “first tranche” of sanctions to effectively “cut off Russia’s government from Western finance.”
When Putin announced Russia’s recognition of the DPR and LPR in the Donbas region, he stated that if Ukraine was to join NATO, it would be a “direct threat” to Russia. The situation is “like having a knife against our throat,” Putin said, adding that Russia has “a right to take countermeasures to enhance our own security.”
This uptick is occurring in the context of a U.S. structural escalation that deserves more than a passing mention in the media: February 16th, The New York Times reported that the United States is building “a highly sensitive U.S. military installation” in Poland, just 100 miles from Russia’s border. The U.S. could launch nuclear-armed missiles from the base, which is set to open this year.
“The advanced and potentially nuclear armed missile deployments in Poland, Romania, and on the Black Sea constituted a clear threat to Russia,” Jack Rasmus, professor of politics and economics at St. Mary’s College, wrote.
Russia seeks a legally binding agreement with the United States that Ukraine won’t be invited to join NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), an anti-Russian military alliance. “A NATO Ukraine could mean moving Romanian and Black Sea US missiles still further north into Ukraine right up to Russia’s border,” Rasmus noted. “With similar NATO forces in the Baltics on its border, Russia would be surrounded with NATO missiles just a few minutes from Moscow.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on February 14 that Russia wants “radical changes in the sphere of European security,” a pullback of NATO troops in Eastern Europe, and limitations on offensive weapons as well as restrictions on intermediate-range missiles. These are the proposals are enshrined in two treatiesRussia proposed, on December 22, 2021 to make the region safer and less susceptible to war. NATO and the Russian Federation would be parties to one treaty. The other treaty would have the United States and Russian Federation as parties.
The Proposed NATO/Russian Federation Treaty
The proposed NATO-Russia treaty provides in Article 5 that the parties “shall not deploy land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles in areas allowing them to reach the territory of the other Parties.”
In Article 6 of the proposed treaty, the parties “commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.”
Article 7 states that “member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in the Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia.”
The U.S.-Russian Federation Treaty
In the proposed U.S.-Russia treaty, the parties would agree “to avoid any military confrontation and armed conflict between the Parties and realiz[e] that direct military clash between them could result in the use of nuclear weapons that would have far-reaching consequences.”
Article 3 of the proposed treaty provides: “The Parties shall not use the territories of other States with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.”
Article 4 reads: “The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
Article 4 also says that the United States “shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”
Article 7 states, “The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.”
The United States and NATO are both NATO members refused to respond positively to Russia’s treaty proposalsThey have continued to fuel the conflict in Ukraine by spreading anti-Russian propaganda. aided and abetted by the corporate media. The U.S.’s meddling in the region is responsible for the unstable situation in Ukraine.
The U.S. Facilitated the 2014 Coup That Overthrew Ukraine’s Elected President
Absent from the corporate media’s Ukraine coverage are discussions of the U.S. role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, when the United States helped to overthrow Ukraine’s elected president. President Viktor Yanukovych refused to accept economic reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), in order to make Ukraine more attractive for investors in 2013. These reforms included lowering wages, reducing education and health sectors (which made up most of Ukrainian employment), and cutting natural gas subsidies that provided affordable energy for Ukrainians. The new, U.S.-backed government reduced heating subsidies by half after the coup and received a $27 million commitment from IMF.
In the days leading up to the coup, the United States promoted anti-government opinionUSAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) were used. “The NED is a key organization in the network of American soft power that pours $170 million a year into organizations dedicated to defending or installing US-friendly regimes,” according to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). “The NED targets governments who oppose US military or economic policy, stirring up anti-government opposition.” In 2013, NED President Carl Gershman wrote in The Washington Post that Ukraine was the “biggest prize” in the rivalry between the East and West.
Victoria Nuland, the then-Assistant Secretary for State for European Affairs (USA), was instrumental in orchestrating the coup. neo-NaziGroups in Ukraine. As FAIR explains, “The Washington-backed opposition that toppled the government was fueledBy far-right and openly Nazi elements.” Following the coup, those neo-Nazi elements were incorporated into the Ukrainian military, to which the United States has funneled $2.5 billion.
Regime change advocate Nuland is now serving as under secretary for political affairs in the Biden administration’s State Department. Only the United States, Ukraine voted against a December 2021 United Nations General Assembly resolution on “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism.”
Russia Considers the U.S.-Backed Coup Threat to its Security
Russia considered the U.S.-backed government installed in Ukraine a threat to its national security. The Crimean Peninsula, which was once part of Russia, was handed over to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in 1954. It is the site of one of Russia’s two naval bases that access the Mediterranean and Black seas. “A Crimea controlled by a US-backed Ukrainian government was a major threat to Russian naval access,” Bryce Greene wrote at FAIR.
Furthermore, 82 percent of Crimea’s households speak Russian and only 2 percent speak primarily Ukrainian. In a plebiscite held right after the 2014 coup95 percent of voters voted for Russia, instead of staying under the new Ukrainian government. Russia annexed Crimea.
In 2014, the mainly Russian areas of Ukraine — Donetsk and Luhansk — on the Russian border also chose to secede from Ukraine. Those regions have been functioning independently from Ukraine since then with Russia’s support and have experienced intermittent fighting.
Russia Fears Ukraine Will Join NATO
As the USSR was disintegrating in 1990-1, the U.S. government promised that the Soviet Union would be preserved. would not expand NATO eastward in return for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s agreement not to oppose the reunification of Germany.
However, by 1999, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic had all joined NATO. Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia joined in 2004, followed by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, notwithstanding George Kennan’s admonition, “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the post-Cold War era.”
However, there are many. skepticism from some well-informed quartersAccording to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukraine will become a NATO member. reaffirmed NATO’s 2008 pledgeto offer membership to the alliance for Ukraine and Georgia. “We stand by that decision,” Stoltenberg declared on December 16, 2021.
A week after Stoltenberg’s declaration, Putin said, “We have made it clear that NATO’s move to the east is unacceptable,” adding that, “the United States is standing with missiles on our doorstep.” Putin queried, “How would the Americans react if missiles were placed at the border with Canada or Mexico?”
Putin was incensed by the George W. Bush administration’s 2001 withdrawalFrom the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. It had been in use for almost 30 year.
Likewise, Lavrov denounced the U.S.’s 2019 withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, in which the parties had agreed not to deploy nuclear-armed missiles in Eastern Europe or on the western border of Russia.
From Russia’s point of view, NATO’s “eastward expansion has created an unacceptable national security risk,” Scott Ritter wroteat Energy Intelligence. “Any accession to Nato by the former Soviet Republics of Ukraine or Georgia is viewed [by Russia] as an existential threat that would require a ‘military-technical’ response.”
“We don’t have a border with Ukraine — we have a border with America, because they are the masters in that country,” Viktor Zolotny, head of Russia’s National Guard, declared before Putin’s February 21 announcement. “Of course we must recognize the republics, but I want to say that we must go farther in order to defend our country.”
Respect the Minsk Agreements
As the Beijing Winter Olympics began in early February, Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping signed a joint statementOpposition to NATO expansion China and Russia stated they “oppose the further expansion of Nato, call on the North Atlantic alliance to abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war, respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilisational and cultural-historical patterns, and treat the peaceful development of other states objectively and fairly.”
In 2015, leaders from France, Russia, Germany, and Germany agreed to Minsk II. This is a package of measures that aims to end the war in Ukraine’s Donbas region. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe was responsible for overseeing the negotiations that led to the agreement. A UN Security Council resolution of February 17, 2015 — labeled as S/RES/2202 — endorsed the “Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements” signed on February 12, 2015.
The 13 points contained in the Minsk AgreementThe Minsk Agreement contains a number of military and political steps, including a ceasefire, withdrawal, dialogue about the interim self-government of Donetsk/Luhansk, constitutional and election reforms, and dialogue about weapons. The majority of the steps in Minsk Agreement are not applicable. have not been implemented, and Ukraine’s government has clearly indicated that it does not intend to implement the agreement.
Russia was represented at a recent meeting between President Joe Biden and Putin. demandedThe West pressured Ukraine to comply with its obligation under 2015 Minsk Agreement. After Russia recognized LPR and DPR’s independence, UN Secretary-General Guterres called for “the peaceful settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, in accordance with the Minsk AgreementsAs endorsed by the Security Council in resolution 2202 (2015).”
UN Expert Says Russians in Donetsk, Luhansk & Crimea Have the Right to Self-Determination
Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Charter both enshrine the rights of all peoples to self-determination. According to professor Alfred de ZayasFrom 2012-2018, he was UN Independent Expert on International Order. the Russians in Ukraine constitute a “people,” and therefore “the Russians in Donetsk, [Luhansk]Crimea and Georgia have the right of self-determination.”
The U.K.-based Stop the War alliance was formed on February 18. issued a statement saying, “The crisis should be settled on a basis which recognizes the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and addresses Russia’s security concerns.”
The thousands of signatories to the statement declared, “We refute the idea that NATO is a defensive alliance, and believe its record in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Libya over the last generation, not to mention the U.S.-British attack on Iraq, clearly proves otherwise.”
According to the statement, Russia and Ukraine should reach a diplomatic agreement on the basis of Minsk II agreements already signed by both countries.
Signatories to the Stop the War Statement include Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour Party leader, and 12 members of Parliament as well as the heads of several U.K unions.
