NATO Could Certainly Help Ukraine vs. Russia

Despite Viktor Yanukovych’s best efforts to undermine and disable the Armed Forces of Ukraine, after nearly eight months of intense combat with Russian mercenaries, commanders and tanks, missiles and other heavy combat equipment, Ukrainian soldiers are beginning to record battlefield victories against their vicious enemy.

Ukraine’s regular Armed Forces, the National Guard and volunteer paramilitary battalions are liberating town after town in their campaign to push the Russian invaders back to Russia. The war has reached a critical point for Russia not only because of the political alienation it is enduring because the war with Ukraine but also because its key commanders are leaving the trenches.

Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the war with Russia, or as Churchill opined the end of the beginning of what is being called Russia’s inevitable war with Ukraine, but the fighting will not stop in the foreseeable future. While Germany last week naively called for a political solution to the crisis in Ukraine, Berlin and the world must understand that the crisis in Ukraine is not based in politics. Russia has invaded Ukraine in order to defeat and re-subjugate it. Moscow could no longer tolerate an independent Ukraine on its border that ousted its hand-picked governor in the person of Yanukovych and is fulfilling its goal of joining the European Union and in time NATO.

In order for Ukraine to realize its mission, the United States, the EU and NATO must stand up and support Kyiv and President Poroshenko politically, economically and militarily.

A couple of days ago Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin was quoted as appealing to NATO and the European Union to provide military support for Ukrainian troops fighting pro-Russian separatists and said the Western military alliance needed to come up with a new strategy toward Kyiv.

Klimkin told German radio station Deutschlandfunk that the EU and NATO needed to consider what they could and would do if rules get broken, adding that this was the case when Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March and was also true of Russia’s actions in Donetsk and Luhansk now.

“It’s a really tough question for the European Union and NATO: What can they do if a war is practically ... being mongered in Europe by a European country?” he said according to a transcript of the interview. “And that’s why, if they say “We can't do much there,” it gives rise to the question: How can you then continue to be seen as a responsible partner?”

Asked if he was appealing to the EU and NATO for military aid, Klimkin emphatically confirmed: “Yes of course. We need military aid because if we got such aid, it would be easier for our troops on the ground to act.”

He said Ukraine is facing a tough situation economically and financially so it needs help now but would later repay this aid. Alongside direct aid, the country also needed the EU to help it implement reforms, Klimkin said.

Indeed, will NATO’s new European allies, the former captive nations, regard the alliance as a serious partner? How will NATO reassure them that it will protect their interests after it failed to save Ukraine?

Fortunately, NATO’s commanders understand the cost of losing Ukraine. The alliance’s top commander said in an interview published on Sunday that if Russia tries to infiltrate troops into a NATO country, even out of official military uniform as it did before it annexed Ukraine's Crimea, NATO will respond militarily.

US Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and a commander who understands the threat Ukrainian is facing, said although NATO had no plans to intervene in non-NATO member Ukraine, NATO countries in eastern Europe needed to start preparing for a possible threat from “little green men” - referring to the Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms who stormed Crimea.

“The most important work to prepare a nation for the problem of ‘little green men,’ or organizing of Russian (speaking) population, it happens first. It happens now,” Breedlove said in an interview published online by German newspaper Die Welt.

“How do we now train, organize, equip the police forces and the military forces of (allied) nations to be able to deal with this?” he asked, according to a transcript of his remarks in English provided by NATO.

“If we see these actions taking place in a NATO nation and we are able to attribute them to an aggressor nation, that is Article 5. Now, it is a military response.”

While Ukraine isn’t a formal NATO member, it should be regarded as a kindred spirit.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also seems to understand the situation. On Friday he accused Russia of an “incursion” into Ukrainian territory.

“Last night we saw a Russian incursion, a crossing of the Ukrainian border,” he told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark, according to Reuters.

However, we are baffled by his cautious use of the word incursion. Why not assert that Russia has invaded Ukraine and continues to pour soldiers and heavy equipment into its eastern region.

“It just confirms the fact that we see a continuous flow of weapons and fighters from Russia into eastern Ukraine and it is a clear demonstration of continued Russian involvement in the destabilization of eastern Ukraine,” Rasmussen said. 

In fact, why are all allies of Ukraine not raising the alarm of invasion when none of them are denying that foreign troops are battling in Ukraine? Why is NATO toying with phrases such as there is a “high probability” that Russia could launch an invasion of Ukraine?

NATO’s military intelligence agents did not serve its commanders well in the past six decades, or at least since the collapse of the USSR because Russia’s war against Ukraine has apparently driven the alliance to re-analyze its original mission: how to protect its old and new members against a very real Russian threat. NATO is being caught without a plan or afraid of carrying out its mission. It will hesitate while someone else’s soldiers die in a war far away.

Stalling will only bring the war closer to Europe’s capitals and America’s shores. Will the free world be able to explain why Ukraine was lost on its watch?

Russian Agents Target Ukrainian Diaspora

It’s not merely a grave. It’s not merely the grave of the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) Stepan Bandera who was assassinated by a Russian agent on orders from Moscow on October 15, 1959. It is a symbol of the Ukrainian nation’s undying quest for freedom, independence and sovereignty around which most of the nation is uniting today.

And now his grave in Munich, Germany, has become the target of vandalism.

Has Russia widened its war against Ukraine by targeting the Ukrainian Diaspora and its most visible historical symbol of its battle for independence and sovereignty from Moscow?

Apparently it has.

Historical venues associated with Bandera and Ukrainian wars of liberation in Ukraine have been targeted by pro-Russian vandals. However, there have not been any reported attacks against Ukrainian sites in the Diaspora.

Since independence on August 24, 1991, and especially since the Maidan Revolution, numerous Lenin monuments have dramatically tumbled across Ukraine. A few more joined the garbage dump in the past couple of days in newly liberated towns in eastern Ukraine, demonstrating that Russia’s war against Ukraine of late has not been going according to Putin’s plan.

This attack against the symbol of Ukraine’s quest for independence cannot be belittled. The Ukrainian community in the free world must bring this to the attention of their local authorities and raise the level of vigilance in all countries.

Moscow is continuing to fulfill its manifest destiny.

Zhirinovsky: Buffoon or Harbinger of Apocalypse

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the vitriolic, bellicose Russian chauvinist, has been spewing his hatred against neighboring nations for years. He doesn’t espouse his love of Russia but he regularly rages against Ukraine and the other x-captive nations. Lately dressed as a colonel in the Russian armed forces, ranting and salivating, Zhirinovsky looks and behaves like a buffoon. But what if he isn’t?

His latest tirade came during an appearance on a talk show on Russia’s Rossiya 24 network. Zhirinovsky, who is also leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), shed a series of new threats against the x-captive nations.

Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, not only threatened those countries, he also suggested launching pre-emptive strikes against Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as Poland. He justified the remarks by suggesting that Russia “cannot allow” peripheral nations’ missile defenses and air forces to be within striking distance of Russia, and that Russia should seek to destroy them “a half hour before they launch,” according to the Euromaidan website.

The language used in the broadcast was considered especially inciteful, not only for calling for the carpet bombing of the four countries, but their entire annihilation.

“What will remain of the Baltics? Nothing will remain…in Poland, the Baltics, they are doomed. They’ll be wiped out…Let the leaders of these dwarf states reconsider this. Eastern European states will place themselves under the threat of total annihilation, and only they will be to blame…we’ll have to teach them the lessons of May 1945,” declared Zhirinovsky, also a close ally of Putin.

As for the USA, Zhirinovsky said it will not be threatened because it is too far. About Ukraine, which is next door, he said: “All questions of war and peace in general and in particular those relating to Ukraine will be solved by one person, the head of the Russian Federation.”

Understandably, Poland and the Baltic states, witnessing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are already concerned about their destinies. This angst is certainly compounded by Zhirinovsky’s latest venom.

In quick order, they summoned the Russian ambassadors in their respective capitals to meetings with their officials to protest his threats.

Latvia strongly condemned the threats. The Foreign Ministry in Riga summoned Russia Ambassador Alexander Veshnyakov “to hear Latvia's position regarding the issue,” the ministry said.

“Statements of this kind are a strong testimony to the wish of Russia's ruling elite to restore the Russian empire,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said. “This also demonstrates that the sanctions applied by the EU and other states against Russia in response to the latter’s actions in Ukraine are appropriate and fully justified.”

Rinkevics added that Latvia would take these comments into account when it discusses with its NATO partners additional measures for the security of the Baltic States and Poland.

A day earlier Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski summoned the Russian ambassador in Warsaw, saying Poland had to react because Zhirinovsky is not a private citizen or even an ordinary lawmaker.

However, Valeria Perzhinskaya, a Russian Embassy spokeswoman in Warsaw, obnoxiously said the ambassador didn’t feel he should have to explain the comments of Zhirinovsky, who does not speak for the Russian government. The Polish government would have been well within its rights to send the Russian envoy home.

The LETA news agency reported that Russian embassy officials further warned against “pre-election rhetoric” and accused Latvian government officials of making “russophobic” comments in the past. That is a standard Russian defensive counter-argument against any sovereign country that disagrees with its policies.

In 2013, Zhirinovsky had threatened the Baltic States, saying that they would be occupied or destroyed since they had dared to support the intervention of the Western countries in Syria.

None of these threats can be treated separately from what the Kremlin is doing. Zhirinovsky is not an unknown commodity in Russia. And he is not alone. Putin stands at the top of Russian triangle and he too is known for threatening near and distant countries. Last week, his former chief economic advisor Andrej Illarionov, said Putin seeks to create “historical justice” with a return to the days of the last Tsar Nicholas II, and the Soviet Union under Stalin. Putin is even targeting Finland.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Russia began military exercises in a Pacific island chain, parts of which are also claimed by Japan, which could be a potential blow to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to keep the door open to dialog with Moscow despite strains over the Ukraine crisis. Japan has sided with Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“Exercises began involving military units in the region, which are deploying to the Kurile Islands," Col. Alexander Gordeyev, a spokesman for Russia’s Eastern Military District, told the Russian news agency Interfax. Gordeyev said more than 1,000 troops, five Mi-8AMTSh attack helicopters and 100 other pieces of military hardware would be involved in the maneuvers.
A Japanese foreign ministry official said the ministry was checking whether the exercises were taking part on islands that Japan considers its territory. The islands are known as the Southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.
“If they are conducting a military exercise on the Northern Territories, we can by no means accept that in light of Japan's stance on the islands. We've already informed the Russian side of that stance and asked for clarification,” the official said.
Even NATO has expressed concern that Russia’s imperial ambition goes beyond Ukraine, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has opined.

"We have seen the illegal annexation of Crimea, we have seen a strong Russian hand in the destabilization of eastern Ukraine," Rasmussen was quoted as telling journalists on a visit to Iceland. “But actually we also see Russia behind the frozen and protracted conflicts in Transnistria and eastern Moldova, in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Georgia.”

He added, “That's why I am concerned that the Russian ambitions go beyond Ukraine.”

Putin’s imperial arrogance is not original but it should be indicative of who the international community has to deal with. Putin also believes that he can win a war with NATO.

Russian pundit Andrei Piontkovsky was quoted by Paul Goble as saying about Putin, “No state or regime goes to war firmly convinced that it will lose it.” Piontkovsky said if Putin goes to war with NATO and even if he escalates that conflict by using nuclear weapons, he will be acting on the belief that he can win it.

Piontkovsky’s observation is also revealing about his intentions with Ukraine. Putin started the war, seized Crimea, then sent his commanders, mercenaries and terrorists into eastern Ukraine and is now amassing tens of thousands of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine – not to mention penetrating the border with a 200-plus convoy of trucks while the world looks on aghast. Putin has a plan and he is convinced that he can win, defeat Ukraine and re-subjugate it.

It is important for world leaders – and the citizens who elected them – to realize that none of this is new or even recent. Putin did not wake up one day in January of this year announcing that he is going to invade Ukraine and take Crimea. Invasion plans are made months if not years in advance.

For decades, even going back to the Soviet days, Moscow had composed security, defense, military and foreign policies that championed its victory. The only difference is that since the downfall of the Soviet Union, Russia’s policies have been openly championing the ancient glory of mother Russia and the longing desire to reestablish its predominance. The Kremlin has a track record, plan and budget to fulfil it.

Consequently, the Western allies, NATO and others would be foolhardy to belittle the menacing saber rattling of someone like Zhirinovsky.

If the West had believed and reacted to Hitler’s Mein Kampf in 1925 and his speeches in Nuremberg in 1934, then there might not have been a war in 1939-45.

Russia Planned to Destroy Aeroflot Plane: Kyiv

As incredible as it sounds, Ukrainian officials have uncovered a Russian plot to shoot down an Aeroflot airliner to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

The SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko reported on the findings at a press conference on, August 7, reported Ukrainska Pravda.

According to Nalyvaichenko, the Russian plane was following the same air corridor at approximately the same time as the Malaysian airliner. It was flight AFL-2074 on the Moscow-Larnaca route, filled with vacationing Russian citizens. It was for this specific dark reason that the Buk missile system, directed by a Russian crew, was delivered to Ukraine. As Nalyvaichenko explained, the Malaysian Boeing-777 was flying at the height of 10,000 meters, and the Aeroflot airliner was to fly at an altitude of 11,600 meters. The Buk missile system, which functions on much higher altitudes, was necessary to destroy the Russian airliner.

Nalyvaichenko explained that this complex was to be set up in the village of Pervomaisk, 20 km west of Donetsk, but “because the experts weren’t locals” they confused the location and transported the Buk to a village further away with the same name, located northeast of Donetsk.

“The Aeroflot airliner was to be struck from the originally planned location, so that it fell on the territory controlled by Ukraine’s armed forces. This terrorist act was cynically planned as a pretext for launching open aggression caused by the mass destruction of innocent Russians,” he said.

According to Nalyvaichenko, the terrorists, including their leader Igor Girkin, expected a full-scale deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine during the night of July 18, UNIAN reported. In fact, it was on July 18 that Russian media began to report on the supposed shelling of Russian territory by Ukrainian troops.

When asked why in the SBU’s radio intercepts the terrorists believed that they had shot down a military transport aircraft of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Nalyvaichenko explained that terrorists at the lower levels were not privy to the real plans. He noted that the terrorist leader Igor Bezler (Bes) reported to Russian security services that the attack had been carried out and then was summoned to Moscow. The SBU wants to question the people who summoned him, Nalyvaichenko said.

He also pointed out that the terrorist Girkin had plans to blow up residential buildings. “When one terrorist act didn’t work, it was to be replaced by another,” he said.

This is not the first time that Russia was caught scheming to kill civilians, including innocent Russians, to achieve its diabolical goals.

Obama Doesn’t Get It

President Barack Obama unfortunately observed that Ukraine does not need additional military assistance to help fight pro-Russian separatists but an invasion by Russia would raise “a different set of questions.”

Extending threats and waiting for Russia to escalate the war before taking action against it is a dangerous game of brinkmanship.

Obama’s comments came after NATO said on August 6 that Moscow had increased its forces along the border with eastern Ukraine to some 20,000 troops.

Obama comment that Ukraine is fighting separatists “who can’t match the Ukrainian army,” is a nice compliment but should not serve as the basis of Washington’s foreign policy. Ukraine is America’s ally or it isn’t. Ukrainian officials have urged Washington to provide lethal aid to Kyiv and some lawmakers have expressed their support for these pleas.

Vice President Joe Biden spoke via phone with President Poroshenko, who said Moscow is already involved in the conflict, firing artillery at Ukrainian forces from Russia.

President Obama and his officials will not serve their or Ukraine’s interests by losing Ukraine on their watch. The consequences of such a failure will resound for generations.

NATO’s Support for Ukraine is Crucial

Ukraine has been recording military victories against Russia and has even surrounded Russian mercenaries in Donetsk. But for complete victory, stronger global support is imperative.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said during a visit to Kyiv last Thursday that the alliance stands by Ukraine and is looking to strengthen its partnership with the country at its summit in Wales in September.

“NATO’s support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is unwavering. Our partnership is long-standing. It’s strong, and in response to Russia’s aggression, NATO is working even more closely with Ukraine to reform its armed forces and defense institutions,” Rasmussen said.

He discussed how to strengthen NATO’s partnership with Ukraine with President Poroshenko, who presented Rasmussen with Ukraine’s Order of Liberty, for his personal contribution to the development of NATO-Ukraine relations and support for Ukraine’s sovereignty. “We stand by Ukraine and your struggle to uphold the fundamental principles on which we have built our free societies,” he said in accepting the reward. 

Russian Tanks on Ukraine’s Border

Despite being again censured by the international community, Russia has been pressing with its intention of helping Ukraine in its time of humanitarian crisis by dispatching several thousands of its troops into Ukraine who would occupy the country for generations to come. In railroad stations in border towns such as Rostov, trains have been seen with tanks on train flatbed cars.

Ukrainian military officials said on Saturday it had headed off an attempt by Russia to send troops into Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers with the aim of provoking a large-scale military conflict. A statement from Moscow dismissed this as a “fairy tale.”

Ukraine has made several similar statements about Russian aggression during months of the war with Russian mercenaries and terrorists in its eastern region. A senior aide to Ukrainian President Poroshenko was quoted as saying that a large Russian military convoy had been heading for the border on Friday under a supposed agreement with the Red Cross. A spokesman for the Red Cross later denied the Russian statement.

Russia will stop at nothing to force an invasion of Ukraine. Global vigilance is imperative in order to keep Moscow’s manifest destiny in check.