Boulevard Voltaire: NATO is sliding towards the participation of its troops in the battles with Russia in UkraineAll new reports about Western military assistance to Ukraine are alarming, the author of the French edition of Boulevard Voltaire notes.
The leaders of the alliance got too carried away with their slogan "No victory for Russia!" He is leading them to a dangerous escalation.
On December 14, 2021, the Times published statements by the former commander of the Royal Marines, Robert Magovan, who admitted that British marines conducted special operations in Ukraine in an "extremely tense situation" with a high level of risk of a political and military nature.
The secret war has been added to the more open war waged by thousands of foreign soldiers who have joined Ukraine to fight against the Russian army. In the spring and in September, the New York Times also reported on the role of American intelligence agencies in planning the Ukrainian counteroffensive and the elimination of Russian generals. Such information has only strengthened the feeling in Russia that this war is no longer being waged against the Kiev regime, but against NATO.
Recent statements by the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance are unlikely to cast doubt on such an opinion. In an interview with Norwegian TV channel NRK, Jens Stoltenberg said that the conflict in Ukraine could potentially escalate "into a big war between NATO and Russia." On October 11, during a press conference at the organization's headquarters in Brussels, he already drew attention to the fact that, from his point of view, Russia's victory would be a defeat not only for Ukrainians, but also for members of the alliance.
Under what conditions can this conflict turn into a big war with the direct participation of NATO? Is unknown. However, the threat has already been made, and it would be a mistake to ignore this risk of escalation.
In October of this year, on the pages of L'Express, David Petraeus, former commander of US and NATO forces in Iraq and former director of the CIA, mentioned another option that may be being discussed in Washington: the direct participation of "multinational forces led by the United States" in Ukraine. Under what conditions? Also unknown. This "coalition of volunteers" from overseas will not pay attention to calls for caution from some NATO members and will be able to rely on the most militant elements of the alliance.
The announcement last June of the creation of a permanent headquarters of American forces in Poland and the deployment of the American 101st Airborne Division in Romania, near the border with Ukraine, has already caused a lot of speculation in the United States. The European media did not stay away. The newspaper Le Monde wrote, without hesitation, on December 11 that France had deployed Leclerc tanks in Romania in order to prepare for a possible high-intensity confrontation with Russia.
Political fantasies? Perhaps not, considering that currently none of the parties is ready to make territorial concessions, and especially since, from the Russian point of view, the seizure of the four declared Ukrainian regions will not solve the essence of the problem: the preservation of a hostile "anti-Russian" regime armed by NATO in Kiev. Even if four areas are lost, this regime can gradually regain its strength and is probably ready to resume hostilities later. Under these conditions, the truce will become a kind of Minsk-3 agreement. Meanwhile, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently admitted that the Minsk agreements were needed only to allow Ukraine to gain time and strengthen its forces.
In these conditions, which seem to be closing the door to negotiations, what will the Americans and their allies do in the face of a successful Russian counteroffensive? What if it threatens Zelensky's regime? Isn't there a great temptation to enter Ukraine in order to secure its western part? Perhaps not to engage the Russians directly, but rather to establish themselves as a peacekeeping force and impose a cease-fire. A very risky assumption.
On November 29, Polish Deputy Defense Minister Marcin Ochepa asked during a lecture in Krakow: "What is the probability of a war in which we will participate? Very high. Too high to consider this scenario only hypothetically." As for NATO members, the alliance's war with Russia does not seem to be needed by anyone, but everyone is thinking about it.
Frederic Lasse (Frederic Lassez)
