Lhe United States flexes its muscles against Russia in the Ukraine crisis. While Moscow has massed thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine, Washington has not mince words and warned that such a strategy saw the risk of reviving the specter of the Cold War. And the threat is by no means veiled: if Russia attempts an incursion into Ukrainian territory, then the United States will have no choice but to intervene. Any violation by Russia of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty “would take us back to a far more dangerous and unstable time, when this continent was split in two, (…) with the threat of all-out war hanging over from everyone’s head”, launched the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Thursday, January 20.
The diplomat made this parallel from Berlin, a city cut in two by a wall for nearly 30 years, where he held talks with his European allies on Thursday on the eve of a crucial meeting in Geneva with the Russians. Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops to the Ukrainian border, raising fears of an invasion. Playing firmness, Antony Blinken judged that the possible entry of Russian soldiers would constitute “a very clear aggression by Ukraine” and this “it does not matter whether it is a single or a thousand soldiers” , in an interview with the ZDF television channel, according to the translation of his remarks into German.
Westerners show their unity in the Ukrainian file
While denying any planned attack, the Kremlin insists that de-escalation requires written guarantees for its security. Antony Blinken and the Western allies of the United States showed their firmness in return. “Any” crossing of the Ukrainian border by Russia would lead to a “rapid and severe” reaction from the United States, warned Antony Blinken. To show the unity of Westerners, the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, assured that the United States and its allies would not hesitate to act even if reprisals were to have “economic consequences” for Europe. .
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His French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, also present in Berlin, warned the Russians against any desire to forge a “Yalta 2”, a new division of spheres of influence between East and West, nearly 77 years after the conference that shaped post-World War II Europe. Same tone in London, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that a Russian incursion into Ukraine, whatever its scale, would be “a disaster for the world”. “Minor incursions” do not exist, added Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in response to a controversial remark made by his American counterpart Joe Biden before the latter clarified his statements on Thursday.
Russia’s response: all-out naval operations
The American leader assured that any entry of Russian troops into Ukraine would be considered an “invasion” which “will lead to a severe and coordinated economic response”, saying he had been “absolutely clear” with Vladimir Putin. Antony Blinken still hopes to find a diplomatic way out of the tensions. On Wednesday, during a support visit to Kiev, he urged Vladimir Putin to choose a “peaceful path”.
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But Russia responded by announcing on Thursday the launch of all-out naval operations, from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Mediterranean, involving 140 warships and 10,000 men. Moscow had already organized joint military exercises on Wednesday with the forces of Belarus, a former Soviet republic also neighboring Ukraine. Exercises likely to prefigure a permanent Russian military presence involving conventional and nuclear forces in Belarus, according to a US official.
Moscow’s non-negotiable demands
A previous round of talks last week in Europe had only made it possible to note the gap separating Moscow and the West. Antony Blinken will not present “no document” during his meeting on Friday in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “We have to see where we stand and whether there are still opportunities to pursue diplomacy,” he said, noting that some Russian demands were “clearly, absolutely doomed to fail,” such as the engagement never to enlarge NATO to Ukraine.
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In addition to a treaty banning any enlargement of the Atlantic Alliance to Ukraine but also to Georgia, another former Soviet republic, Russia is demanding that the Americans and their allies give up organizing military maneuvers and deployments in Eastern Europe. Moscow has made clear that its demands are non-negotiable, and the United States has deemed them essentially unacceptable. In this context, Washington announced Wednesday “a provision of 200 million dollars in additional defensive security aid” to Ukraine, supplementing 450 million dollars of aid already granted.
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The United States has also approved requests from the Baltic countries to ship American-made weapons to Ukraine. Germany for its part rejected the idea of delivering arms to Ukraine, believing that this would only aggravate tensions, but did not exclude consequences for the future of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.