UKRAINE: Still standing, still fighting! Where is NATO?

As we are entering the third week of the of the Russia-Ukraine war.....Ukraine is still standing! Sure, bombs are flying, and missiles are hitting every residential building, school and hospital, but Ukrainians are still fighting against the Russian invaders. And, make no mistake, they are invaders, unwelcomed visitors on Ukrainian land.

How various cities in Ukraine looks like now, after constant shelling

On 7th March, there was the third round of negotiations between the two countries. Russia came up with a list of demands for ceasefire that Ukraine must comply with, for this war to end:
  • Ukraine to stop military action
  • Enshrine neutrality as part of its constitution
  • Allow the absorption of Crimea into Russian territory
  • Recognise Luhansk and Donetsk as independent territories, as per the Kremlin vote in middle of February.
No surprise that the peace talks failed. Russia really wants to push Ukraine in a corner, to get it to play ball to their insane demands. But Ukraine will not submit, and the less they do that, the more rockets and missiles start flying in the air.

On 10th March, today, there was the fourth round of peace talks. This time it was between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. The result of those talks were inconclusive. Lavrov came to ''listen'', while Mr Kuleba came to make some tough decisions in regards to guaranteeing humanitarian corridors for the various cities of Ukraine that have been constantly bombed in the past few days, and maybe having a ceasefire, even for a short period of time. No wonder those talks were like ''a mute talking to the deaf'', to quote Lavrov!

A persistent plea from Ukrainian President, Mr Volodymyr Zelensky, has been that NATO enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He's been begging, practically, for it as he is watching his fellow citizens being blown up by Russian explosives and the cities decimated to rubble: "How many legs, arms, heads must be torn off and fly away to finally reach you to make you introduce a no-fly zone?"

Ukrainian President, Mr Volodymyr Zelensky

WHAT IS A NO-FLY ZONE? WHY IS NATO AGAINST IT?

A no-fly zone is an area of a country's air space where certain planes are banned to fly in. In the case of Ukraine, it means that NATO would declare designated zones of Ukrainian airspace prohibited to Russian military planes.

The problem with a no-fly zone is that it has to be enforced. It is not enough for NATO to just declare the air space free of Russian military aircrafts, they must also enforce it. To do this, they must eliminate any Russian air defences that could reach the NATO aircrafts. This means that NATO jets would have to shoot directly at Russian planes over the country.

NATO members are afraid if they go ahead with such a request, which has been repeatedly asked by the Ukrainians, it will escalate things with the aggressor, Russia. This could lead to war spilling over to NATO member states and turn into WWIII. On top of this threat, there is the constant warning bell of a nuclear war as both America and Russia are nuclear powers.

Ukrainian Su-27 Fighter Jet 

Another difficult aspect of a no-fly zone is that it would be very hard to enforce in a country like Ukraine, versus Russia. This is a big area, and Russia has a pretty good air defence, that would just lead to conflict.

Russia has also responded to the no-fly zone directly, with Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, saying that any movement to implement such an action "will be considered by us as participation of the respective country in an armed conflict."

GIVE US PLANES!

Another request by Mr Zelensky was that, if NATO won't enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, they could give them extra fighter jets. This way, Ukrainian pilots could defend the nation by themselves without NATO involved personnel.

This idea was first floated by Josep Borrell, who is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and said on 27 February, “We’re going to provide even fighting jets. We’re not talking about just ammunition. We are supplying more important arms to go to a war.”

Josep Borrell

This turned out to be an empty promise for the poor Ukrainians, and they were left empty handed with no jet planes. The blunder caused Poland to shy away from the deal the next day. After a week and a half later, they came out with a statement that Poland is happy to send all its MiG-29 jet fighters to a NATO airbase in Ramstein, Germany. In exchange, NATO must backfill Poland with F-16 used jets until such a time that Poland would get its own planes back.

No surprise, NATO and the US Congress decided that this proposition did not make much sense and it was also not beneficial to the American interests. One reason was that Ramstein, Germany was too far away from even Lviv, Ukraine. And the Ukrainian pilots don't have the training to do air to air fuelling.

I have no problems to say that I was very angry and shocked when the decision was made to support and the denied, and then again support and ultimately, again denied, in regards to providing these much needed jets to the Ukrainians. 

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

The future of Ukraine largely depends if the peace talks scheduled in the future for Ukraine and Russia will succeed. If they don't, then Ukraine needs to brace for something worse than what we have seen up to now. It is quoted that some few thousand civilians have been killed or injured, and over 70 kids killed. 

Last week, I wrote a blog post about thermobaric weapons. These monstrosities should be banned under international law, considering how awful and destructive they are. These are the types of weapons that Russia uses to indiscriminately fire at innocent lives: mothers with children trying to escape, old people, babies.

NATO rejected the jets proposal but are working to provide other air defence weapons and military equipment that Ukraine really needs right now. Pentagon Press Secretary, John Kirby said in a Pentagon briefing that the American government is constantly assessing risks and benefits of providing Ukraine with certain equipment. And they are also assessing what Ukraine requests, badly requires and how providing that hardware will help Ukraine and impact USA and NATO, by and large.

Pentagon Press Secretary, John F. Kirby

The West are constantly adding more and more sanctions against Russia, that are already crippling the economy and regressing it back to early 2000s. They hope that by tightening the screw financially, it will force the former Soviet giant’s hand to give up on this fruitless war. A lot of Western companies have either stopped, or completely pulled out, their operations in Russia, or has denied Russian citizens to access their services.

I can’t speak to what is happening in Russia, but there is a shock to the Russian people that, in the space of a few weeks, they have no access to Western companies, technology and their financial power has considerably lessened. We are not even talking about the constantly reduced freedoms that the Kremlin is imposing on the Russian citizens. It is hoped that this will create public pressure and discord in the society, and that will force Mr Putin to change his mind.

CONCLUSION

We are expecting that the fight in Ukraine will get more bloody, more destructive, and deadly, as Russia is getting frustrated and pushed in a corner. Putin was looking to have a quick and cheap invasion, like they did in Crimea. He hoped that it would be just as easy, too. The resistance that the Ukrainians have shown has pulled the rug from under the Russian dictator’s feet.

Can the West do more? Yes, they can. We can provide more military support. This idea that Russia can use nuclear power should not deter NATO, or USA, or any other big superpower, to intervene in Ukraine. The reality is that Vladimir Putin has become an unpredictable player in the war theatre, there is nothing stopping him from using deadly nuclear weapons at any point. And, what if success in Ukraine will give him an ego boost and he will attack a NATO country afterwards? Will NATO still cower in fear on nuclear weapons?

Unfortunately, NATO has already shown that their “red lines” are constantly moving. A Turkish ship was hit by Russian defences, nothing happened. There was Russian cyber attacks on NATO members, nothing happened. This was even though NATO clearly stated before that these events would be something that can potentially trigger Article 5. Now, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said that if any NATO convoy that is providing aid to Ukraine is attacked by Russians, in the conflict, it will trigger Article 5.

Russia openly threatened any countries found to provide help to Ukraine as potential parties to the conflict. They also said that sanctions are an act of war. Of course, it’s crazy to think that Russia will pick a fight with all the countries that have imposed sanctions or provided aid to Ukraine, there are tens of countries that have directly, and largely, contributed to that effort.

I hope that the West wakes up and realises that this war is the prelude to WWIII. We need to put pressures on Russia economically, we need to also stand firm and show strength militarily. Putin is a bully that does not understand anything else other than physical strength. On top of it all, we in the West, need to take a stand on saying that we will not tolerate this kind of destruction and genocide that is clearly happening on the Ukrainian people.

Now, I understand that certain people in the military and intelligence community will think that pulling at the heartstrings and public pressure to the governments are playing right into Russia’s hand. One tactic that the Russians are using is public discord to create chaos and distrust in the official government. However, as democracies, we have a right to voice our opinions and we also have a duty to the Ukrainian people to support them, to bring awareness to what is happening. As Zelensky said, today it’s Ukraine, tomorrow it can be the Baltics, Finland, Sweden, Moldova, Romania. NATO territories. Democratic countries. This war is as much a war on freedom and democracy as it is a war with Ukraine.

If freedom means something to us, we must fight for it with all our might, in any way we can.

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