Grandstand. The threat of Russian invasion of Ukraine, characterized by the presence of 100,000 troops on the border, raises the specter of a territorial war and a border change by force on the European continent. The Ukrainian question cannot be the sole concern of the United States. It primarily concerns the security of the European Union (EU) and requires the “strategic rearmament” of Europeans advocated by Emmanuel Macron before the European Parliament on January 19.
It is Europe that Putin is targeting through Ukraine. He cannot ignore that the doors of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are today closed to Ukraine. At the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit, France and Germany opposed the opening of a Membership Action Plan [plan d’action pour l’adhésion à l’OTAN], therefore accession negotiations, with Ukraine and Georgia. A final compromise communiqué simply promised, without a date or process, that the two countries would become members. Fourteen years later, NATO’s posture vis-à-vis Ukraine has not changed. It was not NATO but the negotiation of a free trade agreement with the EU that led to the pro-European Maidan movement in 2014, the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and the use of force by Moscow.
“This crisis is embarrassing for Washington, which wanted to make the relationship with Russia ‘stable and predictable’ to focus on the rivalry with China”
This is the annexation of Crimea and support for the separatists [prorusses soutenus et armés par Moscou] of the Donbas which awakened the NATO tendencies of Ukrainian public opinion, not the other way around. Putin now sees a Ukraine that escapes him, and aims to get closer to the rest of Europe. The Ukrainian affair here represents a much more central interest for Europe than for the United States. Our interests as our values require to refuse that a country in Europe, which voted for its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 at 92%, is prevented by force from freely choosing its destiny.
Taking advantage of the shift in American strategic priorities towards Asia, perhaps sniffing out weakness after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Putin wants to question the European security architecture resulting from the end of the Cold War. It would thus violate Russian commitments under the 1975 Helsinki Treaty. respecting borders, as well as the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for Kyiv giving up nuclear weapons.
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