Russia-Ukraine war — صفحه 2 از 2 — ✅ خرید وی پی ان ❇ ip ثایت vPn آی پی اختصاصی ◐

مارس 8, 2022

Explained: What is NATO, and why is Russia so insecure about Ukraine joining the US-led alliance?

Among the top reasons for the ongoing war in eastern Europe is the desire of Ukraine to become part of NATO, a Western military alliance led by the United States. To President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine becoming part of NATO poses an existential threat to Russia that is serious enough for him to start a war of the scale that Europe has not seen since the end of World War II in 1945.
Collective defence
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, was set up in 1949 by the US, Canada, and several western European nations to ensure their collective security against the Soviet Union. It was the US’s first peacetime military alliance outside the western hemisphere.
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Thirty countries are members of NATO currently. NATO is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The headquarters of the Allied Command Operations is near Mons, also in Belgium.

Members of NATO are committed to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. Collective defence lies at the very heart of NATO, “a unique and enduring principle that binds its members together, committing them to protect each other and setting a spirit of solidarity within the Alliance”.

This is laid out in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the founding treaty of NATO.
Article 5 reads: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
Origins and rationale
At the end of WW II, as battered European nations started to rebuild their economies, the US, which believed that an economically strong, re-armed, and integrated Europe was critical to prevent the westward expansion of communist USSR, embarked on a programme to supply economic aid to the continent on a massive scale.

The European Recovery Programme, known as the Marshall Plan after President Harry S Truman’s Secretary of State George C Marshall, promoted the idea of shared interests and cooperation between the US and Europe. The USSR declined to participate in the Marshall Plan, and discouraged eastern European states in its sphere of influence from receiving American economic assistance.

In the 1946-49 Greek Civil War, the US and UK worked to thwart the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Greece. The Western nations threw their weight behind Turkey as it stood up to Soviet pressure over control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Strait (which connect the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara and the Sea of Marmara and Aegean Sea respectively) — and in 1947-48, the US committed itself to containing the communist uprisings in Turkey and Greece.
In 1948, Stalin’s government sponsored a coup in (erstwhile) Czechoslovakia, which led to the installation of a communist regime in a country sharing borders with both Soviet-controlled East Germany and the pro-West West Germany. In 1948-49, the Soviets blockaded West Berlin to force the US, UK, and France to give up their post-war jurisdictions in the country, leading to a major crisis and an 11-month airlift of supplies by Western countries to keep their part of the city going.
All these events led the US to conclude that an American-European alliance against the USSR was necessary. The Europeans too were convinced of the need for a collective security solution, and in March 1948, the UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Brussels Treaty of collective defence, which meant that if any of the signatories faced an attack, they would be defended by all the others.

A few months later, the US Congress passed the Vandenburg Resolution, a landmark action “advising the President to seek US and free world security through support of mutual defence arrangements that operated within the UN Charter but outside the Security Council, where the Soviet veto would thwart collective defence arrangements”.
The Vandenburg Resolution was the stepping stone to NATO. The US believed the treaty would be more effective if it included, apart from the signatories of the Brussels Treaty, countries of the North Atlantic — Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, and Portugal. From the American perspective, these countries were the links between the two shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and could help facilitate military action if it was needed.
The treaty was signed in Washington DC on April 4, 1949. It had 12 signatories initially: the US, UK, Canada, France, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Iceland, and Luxembourg.
Expansion of NATO
Greece and Turkey were admitted in 1952, and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in 1955. Spain joined in 1982, and in 1999, a decade after the collapse of the USSR, the former Soviet bloc countries of Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland became part of NATO.

Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020, taking the membership of the alliance to 30.
Tensions with Russia
Hostility to the USSR was the reason NATO came into being, and in 1955, the Soviet Union signed its own collective defence treaty, known as the Warsaw Pact, with seven eastern European countries — Poland, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Romania.

The Warsaw Pact collapsed with the end of the Cold War, and was formally declared disbanded in February 1991. Among its signatories, the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany no longer exist, and the remaining five countries are part of NATO.
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Barring a brief period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia under Putin has been suspicious and insecure about the West. The three Baltic states, now part of NATO, share borders with Russia, and only Belarus and Ukraine among the countries that were once in its sphere of influence are now outside of the western military alliance.
From the perspective of the Kremlin, keeping a buffer between NATO and Russia along its southern and western border is critical to its security. A hostile Ukraine, protected by NATO’s nuclear umbrella, could potentially have missile launchpads within a few hundred kilometres of Moscow, and cut off Russia’s access to the warm water ports of the Black Sea — it was in part to pre-empt this eventuality that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

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مارس 3, 2022

Explained: Why Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal

On March 1, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva (which he attended virtually due to restrictions on air space) that “the threat that the (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy regime (in Ukraine) poses to neighbouring countries and international security in general have increased significantly after the Kyiv authorities started dangerous games involving plans to obtain their own nuclear weapons”.
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From the beginning, Russia has sought to justify its invasion of Ukraine on grounds of the alleged nuclear threat from its smaller neighbour to the west. Lavrov said to the conference that the “irresponsible” statements had to be taken seriously because “Ukraine possesses Soviet nuclear technology and means of delivering these weapons”.
And as a “responsible member” of the international community, he said, Russia “is committed to its non-proliferation pledge, and is taking every necessary measure to prevent the emergence of nuclear weapons and related technology in Ukraine”.
In Ukraine, the nuclear question is playing out very differently. Under an international agreement, and supervised by Russia and the United States, Ukraine had de-nuclearised completely between 1996 and 2001. Now, with invading Russian forces inside its borders, many Ukrainians are wondering whether it had been a mistake to de-nuclearise, and whether having nuclear weapons could have worked to deter Russia’s aggression against their country.

This is based on the arguable underlying assumption that countries that possess nuclear weapons rarely go to war against each other, deterred by the prospect of mutually assured destruction. Ukraine’s decision to give up nuclear weapons followed three years of national deliberations and with the US and Russia, and hefty security assurances by the three original Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) powers — the US, Russia, and UK — and by France and China, too. This was buttressed by promises of non-expansion by NATO to assuage Russian concerns.
For more than two decades, Ukraine was seen as a model of non-proliferation, and an example of an ideal NPT signatory, at a time when India and Pakistan went nuclear, and the A Q Khan proliferation network put Pakistan at the centre of the scandal.

At the end of the Cold War, Ukraine’s choices
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Ukraine set out on the path to independence from the crumbling Soviet Union. Its 1990 Declaration of Sovereignty, passed a year before the USSR broke up, contained an explicit political declaration that it wanted to be a non-nuclear, nuclear weapons-free state.
The Ukrainian republic, one of the 15 in the erstwhile USSR, was at the time just emerging from the Chernobyl disaster (1986). The command and control of the nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil was in Moscow. Ukrainian leaders of the time feared this could place restrictions on their freedom.
After the break-up of the Soviet Union, however, the mood changed in Ukraine. It now believed that giving up the nukes was no longer necessary for its freedom. At the time, Ukraine had 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), of which 130 were liquid fuel SS-19s, and 46 were solid fuel SS-24s. In addition, it had 44 cruise missile-armed strategic bombers. Its warhead inventory was nearly 2,000 — in addition, it had 2,600 tactical nuclear weapons.

But the question then turned to who owned these weapons — Russia, as the main successor state of the Soviet Union, or Ukraine or Belarus or Kazakhstan, where this former Soviet arsenal was stationed. Their deterrence value was also in question, given the long range of the ICBMs, and the knowhow and the finances that would be needed to maintain and replace the arsenal at end of their life.
Retaining the weapons would additionally mean that Ukraine would be a nuclear state outside the NPT. (Other than the P5 countries, other signatories have to be non-nuclear states, or must give up nuclear weapons). Ukraine, which desired to be part of Europe, did not want to embark on its new journey with sanctions and isolation on the continent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrive for a working session at the Elysee Palace. (AP/File)
The assurance of 1994 in Budapest
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurance, signed on December 5, 1994, sealed Ukraine’s membership in the NPT and its status as a non-nuclear country in return for security assurances. The signatories were the presidents of Ukraine (Leonid Kuchma), the US (Bill Clinton), Russia (Boris Yeltsin), and the British Prime Minister (John Major). Later, China and France, who became NPT members in 1992, also became signatories.
The Budapest Memorandum came after the Lisbon Protocol of 1992, which made Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan parties to the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), a 1991 treaty signed by the US and the Soviet Union to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on each side.
The Budapest document committed the powers to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and the “obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. It also committed them to not using their weapons against Ukraine “except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”.
The powers also said they would “seek immediate UNSC action to provide assistance to Ukraine” if it was threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons, and would consult in the event such a situation arose. However, it has been pointed out that this was an assurance, but not a security guarantee.

Ukraine won a political victory by the implicit recognition that it was the owner of the nuclear weapons on its soil. In 1996, within two years of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine handed over all the nuclear weapons on its soil to Russia. Ukraine also managed to strike tough bargains — Russia compensated its neighbour with a payout of 1 billion dollars, and the US paid a massive sum to buy Ukraine’s stockpile of enriched uranium.
Although Ukraine continued to have concerns that Russia was not fully reconciled to the new international boundary, the agreement held for over two decades, even as Russia expressed concerns over NATO’s expansion. Vladimir Putin, who succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president at the end of 1999, first expressed this concern at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, accusing NATO of pushing the envelope to incorporate former states and satellites of the Soviet Union and lighting into the US, accusing it of considering itself above international law and triggering a new arms race through its unilateral actions.
Russian Army military vehicles drive along a street, after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a military operation in eastern Ukraine, in the town of Armyansk, Crimea. (Reuters)
From annexation of Crimea to invasion of Ukraine
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a clear violation of the Budapest Agreement, and the first big test of its security assurance to Ukraine. Despite being a signatory to the agreement, Moscow did not participate in the consultations, and vetoed a resolution against the annexation at the United Nations Security Council. The US imposed some sanctions on Russia, but Europe continued to do business with him.
In the US Congress, a discussion in the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations in 2016 reflected the escalatory nature of US and Russian responses to each other at the time. Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary in the State Department for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, described in detail the steps the US had taken in response to Russia:
“To help Ukraine better monitor and secure its borders, deploy its forces more safely and effectively, and defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the United States has committed over $600 million in security assistance. We have trained over 1,700 Ukrainian conventional forces and National Guard personnel and 120 Special Operations Forces (SOF). We have provided counter-artillery and counter-mortar radars, over 3000 secure radios, 130 Humvees, over 100 armoured civilian SUVs, and thousands of medical kits to help Ukrainian troops successfully resist advances and save lives.

“To counter the threat posed by Russian aggression and deter any military moves against NATO territory, over the past 2 years the United States and our NATO allies have maintained a persistent rotational military presence on land, sea, and air all along NATO’s eastern edge: the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria. As we look towards the NATO Summit in Warsaw this coming July, allies will institutionalize a more sustained approach to deterrence, including by enhancing forward presence in the East to reduce response times to any aggression. To support this commitment,the President has requested $3.4 billion to fund the European Reassurance Initiative. With your support, these funds will be used to deploy an additional rotational armored brigade combat team to Central and Eastern Europe, and for pre-positioning of combat equipment as well as additional trainers and exercises in Europe.”
To President Putin, each element of this response was geared towards an encirclement of Russia, and represented a threat to its security. President Zelenskyy’s statements on arming his country with nuclear weapons was “crossing a red line”, Senator Andrei A Klimov, head of the ruling United Russia party’s foreign affairs committee, told The Indian Express last week.
Now Putin has put Russia’s nuclear forces on “special alert”, the move justified as a response to “aggressive statements” by the West. On Tuesday, as Russia’s nuclear submarines participated in drills, even Russia would be hoping that Putin would not go as far to use any nuclear weapons.
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مارس 1, 2022

Explained: World’s largest plane destroyed in Russia-Ukraine war — here’s what happened

Amid Moscow’s assault on Ukraine, the world’s largest cargo aircraft, the Antonov AN-225 or ‘Mriya’, was destroyed by Russian troops during an attack on an airport near Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities announced Monday.
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According to Ukrainian officials, the plane was extensively damaged after Russian troops entered a Ukrainian air base in Hostomel, where the aircraft was parked. While they have not confirmed the extent of damage, Ukraine has said that it will be rebuilding the legendary plane.

The biggest plane in the world “Mriya” (The Dream) was destroyed by Russian occupants on an airfield near Kyiv. We will rebuild the plane. We will fulfill our dream of a strong, free, and democratic Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/Gy6DN8E1VR
— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) February 27, 2022
“This was the world’s largest aircraft, AN-225 ‘Mriya’ (‘Dream’ in Ukrainian). Russia may have destroyed our ‘Mriya’. But they will never be able to destroy our dream of a strong, free and democratic European state. We shall prevail,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
What do we know about the Antonov AN-225?
With a wingspan of over 290-feet, the unique Antonov AN-225 was designed in what was then the Ukrainian USSR during the 1980s amid a tense race to space between the United States and the Soviet Union. The plane, nicknamed ‘Mriya’ or ‘dream’ in Ukrainian, is very popular in aviation circles, and is known to attract huge crowds of fans at air shows around the world.

New 📸 @Maxar satellite images show a 3.25-mile convoy of Russian ground forces with 100s of military vehicles NE of Ivankiv, Ukraine and moving toward Kyiv (40 miles away). Contains fuel, logistics, armored vehicles (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery). pic.twitter.com/Z75iNhy7Jw
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) February 27, 2022
It was initially designed as part of the Soviet aeronautical program to carry the Buran, which was the Soviet version of the US’ Space Shuttle. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when the Buran program was cancelled, the aircraft was instead used to transport massive cargo loads.
Only one AN-225 was ever built by the Kyiv-based Antonov Company, the defence manufacturers who originally designed the plane. It is essentially a large version of another design by the Antonoc company — the four-engine An-124 ‘Condor’, which is used by the Russian Air Force.
The aircraft first took flight in 1988 and has been in use ever since. In the recent past, it has been used for delivering relief supplies during calamities in neighbouring nations. During the initial days of the Covid pandemic, it was used to supply medical supplies in affected nations.
What happened to the plane?
Since launching its attack four days ago, Russia has been targeting airfields and military bases. On Friday, Russia claimed it had captured the Hostomel airfield, where the AN-225 was under repair.

This was the world’s largest aircraft, AN-225 ‘Mriya’ (‘Dream’ in Ukrainian). Russia may have destroyed our ‘Mriya’. But they will never be able to destroy our dream of a strong, free and democratic European state. We shall prevail! pic.twitter.com/TdnBFlj3N8
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) February 27, 2022
“Russia has hit the Mriya as a symbol of Ukraine’s aviation capabilities,” Ukraine’s state-run defence manufacturer Ukroboronprom, which manages the Antonov Company, announced on Sunday.
According to a CNN report, satellite images of the air field show significant damage to the hangar in which the plane is located. NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System reported a fire at the airport at around 11:13 am on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Antonov Company, in a statement, said that it still “ cannot report on the technical condition of the aircraft.”

What’s next for the Antonov AN-225?
Ukroboronprom announced that the plane will be restored at Russia’s expense at an estimated cost of $3 billion. “The restoration is estimated to take over $3 billion and over five years,” the company said.
“Our task is to ensure that these costs are covered by the Russian Federation, which has caused intentional damage to Ukraine’s aviation and the air cargo sector,” it added.
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