As Russia wants more of Ukraine, US flaunts NATO

Washington/Moscow/Beijing: As Russia wants more of Ukraine, the US is using NATO to counter it. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington D.C. on June 17, 2024, stressing the need to continue to provide long-term support to Ukraine. He argued that the stronger support is for Ukraine, the sooner Russia’s war will end.

Yet, there are other financial dimensions too for the US. Stoltenberg pointed out that since 2022, “over two-thirds of European defence acquisitions were made with US firms.” He added: “NATO is good for US security, good for the US industry, and good for US jobs.” He stressed that for 75 years, NATO has been the ultimate security guarantee for all Allies, and that in NATO, “the US has 31 friends and Allies that help to advance US interests and multiply America’s power”. 

Stoltenberg’s statement follows a global meeting in Burgenstock, Switzerland, over the weekend, where US Vice President Kamla Harris joined Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and leaders and representatives from over 90 countries to discuss “vital” cooperation on global food security, nuclear safety, and catastrophic humanitarian impacts of the war.

Participants at the Switzerland meeting reaffirmed their support for the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Ukraine, but Moscow was not impressed. “The failure of the Swiss “gathering” was quite predictable. This was bound to happen because the Nazi Kyiv regime and its Western masters did not intend to search for ways of resolving the Ukraine crisis by peaceful means from the very beginning. They are not interested in peace in Ukraine, they need further confrontation, escalation and expanded hostilities to implement their unrealisable dream of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists in Moscow.

Maria’s US counterpart, Matthew Miller reiterated Washington’s “steadfast support for Ukraine”. He also mentioned the US-Ukraine Bilateral Security Agreement that was signed by Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week on June 13.

“In this agreement, the United States and Ukraine state our intentions to advance security and economic cooperation, anti-corruption reforms, and accountability for Russia’s actions,” he said, adding that this legally binding agreement contains a set of mutual commitments representing a historic show of support for Ukraine’s long-term security.

“It is a crucial milestone as we seek to establish a broad, mutually reinforcing, and powerful network of nations to safeguard Ukraine’s future and support its Euro-Atlantic integration, including its interoperability with NATO,” Miller said.

Already there have been enough discussions on the prospects of the US permitting Ukraine to strike with US arms targets not only in Russian border zones but outside of that. On June 12, 2024, the US Permanent Representative to NATO, Ambassador Julianne Smith, acknowledged Biden’s decision that “that type of targeting is something that we could support, and that is the latest development”.

NATO Secretary General, on his part, just did not stop at Ukraine but went on to specifically call on NATO nations to impose a cost on China for its support to Russia in the war in Ukraine by continueingly providing military technologies to Russia to help Moscow in the Ukraine war. He immediately got the backing of the US: “…the responsibility is on China to stop the actions of Chinese companies that are helping Russia rebuild its defence industrial base, and we have made it quite clear to China and our European partners, including a number of NATO members, have made it quite clear to China that it is China’s responsibility.”

Beijing today reacted strongly to Stoltenberg’s remarks asking  NATO to reflect on itself, rather than smear and attack China. “China is not a creator of or a party to the Ukraine crisis,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian told journalists in Beijing. Mentioning NATO as the world’s largest military group, Jian quipped, “The world has seen what kind of role NATO has played in the Ukraine crisis”. 

Incidentally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his June 14, 2024  remarks at the Russian Foreign Ministry suggested the withdrawal of Ukrainian military units from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions; the neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status of Ukraine, as well as its demilitarisation and denazification; ensuring in full measure the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine.

He had demanded that new territorial realities should be formalised, including the status of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions as the Russian Federation’s constituent entities.

The US, however, mocked Putin’s “maximalist statement that called on Ukraine to surrender even more of its sovereign territory than what Russia currently occupies before negotiations could even begin”. Miller said it was now clear that Russia was “unprepared for any serious, good-faith discussions”. He claimed Russia’s actions “make this especially clear as it continues its bombing campaigns against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, threatens ships in the Black Sea, and forcibly relocates tens of thousands of Ukrainian children”. 

According to Maria, though, Putin “shows a real way towards a sustainable peace settlement”. The Russian President went on to state in a signed article that was published today in the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmon, that the United States and its satellites were doing everything they could “to protract and further exacerbate the conflict in Ukraine, which they have themselves provoked by supporting and organising the 2014 armed coup in Kyiv and the subsequent war in Donbas”.

Putin wrote that over the years the US and its satellites repeatedly rejected all his attempts to resolve the situation peacefully. “Russia has always been and will remain open to equal dialogue on all issues, including the most difficult ones. I reiterated this at my recent meeting with Russian diplomats in Moscow,” Putin wrote and signed it off stating, “No matter how hard they tried, all their attempts to contain or isolate Russia have failed. We continue to steadily build up our economic capability, and develop our industry, technologies, infrastructure, science, education and culture”.

– global bihari bureau