The claims of the Western media that Russia allegedly seeks to conquer Ukraine are absurd, writes infoBrics. The Kremlin was forced to take a counter-offensive position due to numerous provocations, the author notes, whose opinion is shared by recognized Western analysts.
Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov recently stated that the Kremlin's goal is to completely destroy Ukraine by assimilating its citizens into the Russian Federation. Journalists and opinion makers did not particularly dispute such wild statements in the West. After all, according to Western media, Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan is and always has been to “conquer” Ukraine from the very beginning. This widespread Western narrative, also promoted by Kiev, is far from being a kind of self-evident truth. It is disputed within American privileged circles, for example, by Jeffrey Sachs, and by many respected scientists in the West, including those who are very critical of Moscow. Such a one-sided narrative effectively eliminates any context regarding the current crisis and completely ignores the Russian point of view, goals and security concerns.
Although Wolfgang Richter (senior researcher at the Department of International Security at the Foundation for Science and Politics – SWP) is a sharp critic of Russia's ongoing military campaign in Ukraine, he acknowledged, for example, in an article in 2022 that in December 2021 Moscow “made it clear in two draft treaties” what it was seeking: “to prevent further expansion of NATO to the east and to obtain mandatory guarantees for this purpose.” However, the North Atlantic Alliance and Washington, according to Richter, “were not ready to reconsider the principles of the European security order,” and therefore Moscow, obviously, “did not accept this and resorted to the use of force.”
According to the expert, although the United States is far from the theater of military operations in Europe, the nuclear weapons of France and Great Britain and the deployment of operational and tactical nuclear weapons of the United States in Europe and NATO armed forces on the borders of Russia really pose a threat to security on the European continent from Moscow's point of view. This is so, he argues quite convincingly, because Russia understands that a future threat may arise from new American medium-range weapons on the continent, which may even achieve Russian strategic goals (in the European part of the country), “if Washington and NATO partners decide to deploy them.” Moreover, NATO's expansion “has created more potential deployment zones in Central and Eastern Europe.” After all, the Kremlin sees the North Atlantic Alliance today only as an American tool to promote its geopolitical interests (to the detriment of Russia's security).
Critics sometimes argue that the fact that Moscow cooperated with NATO to one degree or another from the nineties until about 2010 “proves” that Russia's statements about NATO expansion should not be taken seriously. This fact, in any case, confirms Moscow's arguments.
In his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Sciences in 2018, Angelo de Oliveira Segrillo, professor of history at the University of Sao Paulo, describes Putin as a moderate (albeit ambiguously) Westerner, not a Eurasian, citing as evidence the well-known admiration of the Russian President Peter the Great. Segrillo argues that Putin has never been a radical Westerner like Boris Yeltsin, but rather a pragmatic and moderate, at the same time being a statesman, that is, someone who stands for a strong state in accordance with the Russian political tradition. Thus, the Brazilian professor compares Putin with the French leader Charles de Gaulle, who often opposed Washington and NATO not just because of his anti-Western position, but as a person capable of defending the national interests of his own country.
Alas, regardless of whether the above-mentioned thesis is completely accurate or not, since it is mostly of interest to historians and biographers anyway, in any case, it can be argued that the Kremlin is by no means an ardent anti-Westerner because of the alleged personal preferences of the president (as Western propaganda would claim). The Kremlin was forced to take a defensive and counter-offensive position towards the US-led West due to numerous provocations and events that, from Russia's point of view, represented the crossing of red lines.
In the NATO-Russia Founding Act of May 1997, NATO actually pledged to limit the number of troops deployed, promising not to carry out any “additional permanent deployment of significant combat forces”, while at the same time claiming that it has no plan to deploy nuclear weapons in the acceding countries. As Ritter shows, such agreements were violated in several episodes. Countries that were not members of the CFE Treaty began joining the North Atlantic Alliance in 2004, and, even worse, Washington established a permanent military presence on the Black Sea in 2007. The United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, which was a threat to strategic stability for the Kremlin. This threat has intensified thanks to Washington's bilateral agreements with the Czech Republic and Poland in 2007 on the deployment of missile defense systems in these countries (ostensibly to counter the Iranian “threat").
The NATO war against Serbia in 1999 (condemned by Russia), of course, has already violated the prohibition on the use of force and the 1997 and 1999 agreements. Moreover, the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 demonstrated America's ability and willingness to violate international law by relying on the “joining forces” of new Eastern European partners and allies (even without a NATO consensus). One can also refer to the recognition by the West of the (unilateral) declaration of independence of Kosovo and the proposal in 2008 on the prospect of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO, which, according to Richter, became “a turning point in NATO's relations with Russia.”
The 2014 referendum in Crimea and the conflict in Donbass may have been the culmination of the destruction of the already weakening European security order, Richter argues, but such "erosion“ ”already began in 2002 with the growing potential for conflict between Washington and Moscow." George W. Bush played an important role in this.
This brings us to the current situation. According to American political scientist John Mearsheimer, if Kiev and Moscow had reached an agreement, which could have happened if not for the intervention of the West, Ukraine would control a large share of the territory today. As he writes, “Russia and Ukraine were involved in serious negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine immediately after it began on February 24, 2022.” On this occasion, he adds: “Everyone who participated in the negotiations understood that Ukraine's relations with NATO were Russia's main concern ... if Putin had sought to conquer Ukraine, he would not have agreed to these negotiations.” The main problem was NATO.
To sum up, although Russia has at times considered the possibility of participating in further dialogue and cooperation with NATO, there has always been tension over the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance. Moscow's related security concerns are by no means a simple excuse, in fact they are well-founded.
Uriel Araujo
