X-Captive Nations
Must Unite vs. Russian Imperialism
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine one week after the conclusion
of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the ensuing Russo-Ukraine War
of 2014 have demonstrated that none of the former captive nations of Russia are
safe from the Kremlin’s never-ending quest to restore its empire, prison of
nations and the iron curtain.
News of Russia’s hurried militarization, pronouncements of a
right to defend itself at all costs and retake the former captive nations, and
numerous sorties over European countries beyond the Baltics have given rise to real
concerns in eastern European capitals that their future is at stake. Russia’s
newly revised military doctrine has also lead to sobering fears about Russians
at their doors in countries that border Russia to the west and east.
What are the former captive nations to do? With NATO immersed
in a deep re-analysis of the mission that it was precisely mandated to
undertake at the end of World War II – to defend the free world against Russian
imperialism, the alliance is not building confidence in the captive nations. The
logical question is if the aggressor has clearly not changed, why then should NATO’s
mission change?
Vladimir Putin’s
Russia is escalating its war against Ukraine while setting its sights on Baltic
and east European countries – and beyond. It has stationed 800 servicemen from
its Northern Fleet in Alakurtti within 50 kilometers of the Finnish border, with
the rest of the fleet to be deployed soon, according to announcement by Commanding
Admiral Vladimir Korolev of the
Russian navy on January 13.
At full force, Russia’s Northern Fleet consists of some
3,000 ground troops trained for combat in Arctic conditions, along with 39
ships and 45 submarines. Its arrival in Murmansk follows Russia’s decision last
year to create a united command for all of its units designated with protecting
Russia’s interests in the country’s northern regions.
“In 2015, the Defense Ministry’s main efforts will focus
on an increase of combat capabilities of the armed forces and
increasing the military staff in accordance with military
construction plans. Much attention will be given to the groupings
in Crimea, Kaliningrad and the Arctic,” Russian General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov said, according to
Russia’s Sputnik news agency.
Leaders of the former captive nations fully understand the
danger that Russia presents to their independence and sovereign existence. They
are on the record as stating that Russia is a terrorist state that has not
lived up to any agreement that it has signed. They meet regularly to coordinate
their security and defense. The Baltic Review reported on such a meeting held
earlier this month:
“This year, President Bronisław
Komorowski of Poland is also invited to take part in the traditional
meeting the main purpose of which is to discuss regional security measures.
“The Lithuanian head of state together with Estonian
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves,
Latvian President Andris Bērziņš and
Polish President Bronisław Komorowski reviewed the implementation of decisions
adopted at the NATO Summit in Wales as well as energy, information and cyber
security issues.
“ ‘Our countries have a shared goal – secure and
economically strong region. We will only achieve this goal by standing together
in the implementation of long-term collective defense measures and strategic
projects aimed at ensuring the region’s energy self-sufficiency,’ the President
(of Lithuania) said.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine delivered a wake-up call on
defense spending to the small Baltic States.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are on heightened alert
as Russian military planes and warships circle their airspace and sea
borders on a daily basis in what they call “unprecedented” Russian activity.
Sven Mikser,
Estonian Defense Minister, recently concluded the biggest military procurement
in his country’s history, worth 138 million euros ($160 million). The deal buys
44 CV90 combat vehicles and six Leopard tanks from the Netherlands. It comes a
month after Mikser agreed a contract worth $46.2 million with the US to buy 40
Stinger missile systems. Estonia also has an order for self-propelled guns in
the works.
Latvia bought 123 combat vehicles for $55.5 million from
Britain in August and in November agreed to a $4.6 million deal with Norway for
800 Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons and 100 trucks.
Lithuania bought a $39.3 million GROM air defense system
from Poland in September and a month later said it would spend $18.5 million on
a fresh supply of Javelin anti-tank missiles from the US.
That brings the price tag for Baltic military spending on
hardware to $347 million euros in six months.
Leading the political fight against Russia’s aggression is President
Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, an
unabashed critic of Putin and Russia’s imperialism, and ardent supporter of
Ukraine, who is often photographed at a military shooting range.
Grybauskaite has noted that Ukraine is not just fighting for
its own sovereignty, but it is defending the sovereignty of all European
nations. Her acerbic denunciation of Putin’s war is without comparison in
eastern Europe.
During an interview with German news
magazine Focus in June Grybauskaite said the Russian despot “uses
nationality as a pretext to conquer territory with military means. That’s
exactly what Stalin and Hitler did.”
Grybauskaite elaborated:
“Russia is at war against Ukraine and that is against a
country which wants to be part of Europe. Russia is practically in war against
Europe,” she said, adding that she is prepared to “take up arms” in the
instance Russia attacks
Grybauskaite is convinced that if Russia is not repulsed
from Ukraine, Putin will sweep across the Baltics, central Europe and northern
Europe.
“The situation is still deteriorating. Russian troops are
still on the territory of Ukraine. That means that Europe and the world are
allowing Russia to be a country which is not only threatening its neighbors but
is also organizing a war against its neighbors. It is the same international
terrorism as we have in Iraq and Syria.
“In Ukraine, it is a real war. The European Union and most
of the leaders in the world are trying to talk about it as if it is not war but
some kind of support of terrorist elements. We saw Crimea. In the very
beginning, it was green men, and it became Russian military. Now it is the same
in eastern Ukraine. And I’m sure that it is not the last territory where Putin
is going to demonstrate his powers.
“If we will be too soft with our sanctions or adapt
sanctions but not implement them, I think he will go further trying to unite
east Ukraine with south Ukraine and Crimea. He recently said that in two days
he is capable to reach Warsaw, the Baltic States, and Bucharest. So that is an
open threat to his neighbors.
“If he will not be stopped in Ukraine, he will go further.”
Grybauskaite’s colleagues in Riga and Tallinn are equally
troubled by Russian saber rattling. In the Baltic States, Russia’s goal is to
undermine local trust in NATO’s collective defense, to destabilize internal
politics, provoke local Russians to seek Moscow’s intervention, and ultimately
to cause the countries to give in to Russian interests. As for military
provocations in the Baltics, Moscow sees them not so much as an invasion, but
rather a matter of taking back what rightfully belongs to Russia. Some feel the
same scenario used in Ukraine is already unfolding in the Baltic countries.
Archbishop Gintaras
Grusas of Vilnius, president of the Lithuanian bishops’ conference,
observed that Lithuania is in the front line and Russia has made its intentions
clear. He believes that Russian aggression against Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia is possible, and appealed to Western Catholics to be better informed
about the situation.
“While we feel NATO’s support, we know the front could move
forward if the international community fails to stand firm,” said Archbishop
Grusas of Vilnius. “What isn’t fully realized in the West is that the
information and propaganda war which preceded the military action against
Ukraine is very much underway here, too. There’s a high degree of tension, and
everybody here knows how dangerous the situation has become. The three Baltic
states are relatively small countries, which can be pressured more easily than
Ukraine,” Archbishop Grusas told the Catholic News Service.
“Russia is a great country, with great people. But the
desire to promote that greatness, perhaps with new empire-building, runs deep
in the Russian mindset under President Vladimir Putin. They’ve expressed a
belief they have a right to lands they once ruled.”
The Baltics are hoping for at least an increased NATO
presence so that Moscow would think twice about invading them. Lithuanian
Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius
explained that he does not have any reason to doubt the security guarantees
which were provided by NATO and the EU but he added that that’s not a reason to
relax.
“Freedom and peace are not a given. They are something that
should be defended when the time comes,” Linkevicius said. “We are not talking
about militarization, about big divisions of NATO troops. I am talking about a
sensible level of presence which does not exist at all right now.”
A few days ago, Lithuania’s Defense Ministry announced that
it will be distributing a manual that advises its citizenry how to behave if
Russian tanks stream across their borders. “Keep a sound mind, don’t panic and
don’t lose clear thinking,” the manual advises Lithuanians, according to
Reuters. “Gunshots just outside your window are not the end of the world.”
Reuters said the manual reads like a guide to non-violent,
passive civil resistance. It urges Lithuanians to participate in demonstrations
and strikes. The manual even tells workers to engage in a kind of passive
sabotage to crash the economy and make life hard on the Russians by “by doing
your job worse than usual.”
The country’s Defense Minister Juozas Olekas told Reuters: “The examples of Georgia and Ukraine,
which both lost a part of their territory, show us that we cannot rule out a
similar kind of situation here, and that we should be ready,”
Distrust of NATO’s promises is not unfounded. Despite what
up to now has been a solid EU front in support of sanctions against Russia, seven
countries in the European Union have said they will support ending them.
Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Hungary and Slovakia are
reportedly in agreement on the matter. Such a crack in the bloc will only encourage
Russia not to fear the European paper tiger.
Fortunately, in an op-ed article in The Times of London, President
Barack Obama and British Prime
Minister David Cameron declared
their commitment and “enduring mission” to fight the growing terror threats and
stand up to Russian aggression against Ukraine. They said they will face
Russia’s aggressive stance in Ukraine since the failure to challenge Moscow may
lead to instability as Putin continues to ignore international law. Their
position allays some anxieties but only if the US and UK maintain their
position.
Some Western pundits also see this threat but not nearly
enough of them. Bloomberg news wrote: “Vladimir Putin undermines NATO
members by stirring up trouble with Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia,
and with Russia's Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania. Recent
airspace encounters show Russia’s willingness to test NATO’s capabilities.”
Russia’s militarization also foresees its development of the
capability to threaten several neighbors at once on the scale of its present
operation in Ukraine, according to Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges.
Hodges, commander of US Army forces in Europe, told Reuters
last week that an attack on another neighbor does not seem imminent because
Moscow appears to have its plate full in Ukraine for now.
But that could change within a few years, Hodges said, when
upgrades sought by Putin would give Russia the ability to carry out up to three
such operations at the same time, without a mobilization that would give the
West time to respond.
“Right now, without mobilizing, I don’t think they have the
capacity to do three major things at one time. They can do one thing, I think,
in a big way without mobilizing. But in four to five years, I think that will
change,” Hodges said. “Certainly within the next four to five years they will
have the ability to conduct operations in eastern Ukraine and pressure the
Baltics and pressure Georgia and do other things, without having to do a full
mobilization.”
In view of the latest wave of Russian aggression against the
former captive nation, the joint defense concept charted by Yaroslav Stetsko and the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1943 is worthy of a revival. The
resulting Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) was created as a
coordinating center for the liberation of captive nations of the Soviet Russian
empire.
The former captive nations may have another opportunity to resuscitate
such a structure. According to the Latvian Foreign Ministry, plans are under
way to convene in May the next session of the Eastern Partnership summit in
Riga that is aimed at intensifying ties between the EU and six of the other
former Soviet republics – Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Ukraine. The participants would be remiss if they didn’t form a regional
security and defense organization along the lines of ABN or NATO that would
include a well-armed and funded multi-national rapid deployment force.
Not surprisingly, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin had also alluded to the
imperativeness of such a far-reaching coalition. Outraged by the Russian
invasion of his homeland, Klimkin suggested soon after President Petro Poroshenko’s visit to Canada and
the United States last fall the creation of a Coalition of Freedom to defend
democracy and Western values in a troubled world.
“It is about security for everyone,” said Klimkin during an
exclusive Fox News interview on the eve of the 65th UN General Assembly. “If
someone in this interchangeable and intertwined world cannot feel secure, how
can US citizens here feel secure?”
Klimkin explained then that Ukraine is confronting a
threat any nation can face, adding “we need a network of security.” His
Coalition of Freedom would consist of “countries which are committed to
freedom, to democratic values, where we are not talking about spheres of
influence, but the values and real interests of democratic countries.”
I applauded his decision in my blog at the time.
Undeniably, the former captive nations are being threatened
by Russia and cannot trust their sovereign, independent existence to the whims,
politics and nervousness of NATO and the free world. They must unite for their
joint security and defense and to protect themselves from Russian aggression.
