Today Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seconded a statement by Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili that “it is time for concrete proposals for Ukraine and Georgia to obtain a NATO MAP and a plan to join the EU.” The two countries have been paired as partners for future NATO membership, with both being promised membership in the global military bloc at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania in 2008.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, seconded Zelensky’s demand that NATO admit Ukraine as a full member, stating that only that move would prevent a Russian invasion: “The only possibility for this [to prevent alleged invasion plans] is for Ukraine to finally become a NATO member.” He also claimed that had his country been in NATO in 2014 the secession of Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea would not have occurred; neither would the now seven-year was in the Donbass. He neglected to state whether the U.S.-engineered uprising and overthrow of an internationally-recognized government would also have occurred. Most likely not, as the populations of NATO nations are not allowed to elect, or if elect, keep any government Washington and Brussels view with disapprobation.
The envoy then made this provocative statement:
“Ukraine has no other choice: either we are part of an alliance such as NATO and are doing our part to make this Europe stronger, or we have the only option – to arm by ourselves, and maybe think about nuclear status again. How else can we guarantee our defense?”
He also claimed there were 90,000 Russian military personnel deployed to the Donbass border and to Crimea; in his words, “We are dealing with the largest troop movement in Russia since the Second World War.” Which is arrant nonsense.
When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 a third of total Soviet nuclear weapons were in Ukraine; with 1,700 warheads in the country it had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world after the U.S. and Russia. In 1994 Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon nation. It’s that decision the above-cited ambassador suggested be reversed. In fairness, this isn’t the first time the question of Ukraine developing its own nuclear weapons capacity has been broached. Over the past twenty years NATO-trained military leaders have raised the issue. But never before, and never during a crisis remotely comparable to the present one, has the issue been phrased so brutally: either place Ukraine under NATO Article 5 mutual military assistance status – and NATO acknowledges itself a nuclear alliance – or Ukraine will reassert itself as a nuclear power.
The shelling of the Donbass will be mild in comparison to what an armed conflict between a nuclear Ukraine and nuclear Russia would portend.
Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. He is the manager of Stop NATO. This originally appeared at Anti-Bellum.
Ukraine illustrates how nations repeat the same mistakes of history, stumbling blindly into the wars they should avoid. It has all the ingredients for world war three. The omens are not good.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
I think Russia will invade Ukraine before allowing it to host NATO.
That was the reason for the coup get Ukraine into the EU / NATO and get Russia out of it`s naval base and replace it with a NATO naval base , however as alway`s America / Britian under estimated russia determination to block Western aggression.
Yes, and it was therefore the reason for the Russian military intervention.
The US crossed a red line of vital interests of a peer nuclear power. That was never done in the past. It is whey Eisenhower declined to intervene in Hungary in 1956, and the US again declined to intervene in Czechoslovakia in 1967.
No country is ever eligible for NATO when it has an outstanding military dispute.
NATO is a defensive alliance, not an instrument for intervention in ongoing wars of new members.
NATO is also not shelter for a rogue nation threatening to go nuclear, as this guy just did.
Somehow I think those rules will be circumvented.
They need a unanimous vote to do it. They got it despite small issues with tiny states, but Ukraine is a big one with a big enemy. It is uncharted territory for the US to carry unanimous consent.
Cremia has been a peaceful place ever since it joined Russia in 2014. It voluntarily by referendum it asked for joining the Russian federation after the American engineered violent coup, which resulted in an ultra-right fascist regime, hostile to Russia. I can fully understand that. The majority of the population is Russian and has always been Russian before 1953. In the event Cremia were to be invaded by Ukrain the Cremians would without a shadow of doubt rise up and resist the fascist invaders, exactly the same as the people in Donetsk and Lugankst are doing since 2014.