Is the Russian Invasion of Ukraine “Imminent”?
At the top of the headlines for the past few months, we have constantly heard that the Russian invasion of Ukraine’s eastern border is “imminent.”
Putin has insisted that he is placing troops on Ukraine’s border solely for negotiation that Ukraine never be admitted to NATO and is insisting that NATO allies curtail their military exercises on Russia’s border. Since the 1990s, NATO has routinely run military exercises along Russia’s borders in eastern European nations, while the renewal of nuclear weapons treaties have run into repeated road blocks. He’d also like the Soviet-era the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties (SALT and SALT II) reinstated. Another underlying strategy is to provide a fail-safe so that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will open on schedule.
Ironically, it is a foregone conclusion that Ukraine will never be a NATO member because most member nations do not want Ukraine for various reasons. Everyone involved with the negotiations knows this. In the time of the Soviet Union, NATO guaranteed certain security measures along the bordering eastern bloc countries. With the dissolution of country in 1991, NATO reneged on those guarantees while continuing to view the Russian Federation as though it poses the same threat. Putin now wants the security measures reinstated and to move forward with energy supply and better trade with Europe. Short term nuclear missile limitations are in everyone’s best interests. There is no reason that the negotiations Putin has demanded on these central concerns should not go forward.
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