He Kremlin is taking advantage of the parenthesis between Donald Trump’s victory in the November 5 elections and his inauguration on January 20 to take more military advantage over the Ukrainian army in the face of eventual negotiations promoted by the new elected president of the United States. However, as things stand, the feasibility of an armistice seems a pipe dream.
Russiawhich has stated his confidence that Trump will take that oft-repeated step of ending the warwants to reinforce its weight in negotiations by redoubling its offensive in eastern Ukraine, launching a wave of North Korean missiles and Iranian drones against kyiv this Wednesday, for the first time in several months, and advancing on new fronts, such as the Zaporizhia region, divided between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Trump promised on several occasions to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hoursor at least to American participation in it, and now Moscow and Washington’s allies in NATO and the European Union await a step in this regard. Russia with the expectation that such a decision will allow it to keep the fifth part of Ukraine that it has annexed and the Europeans uneasy at the prospect of being left alone in military support for Ukraine.
NATO warns against a new axis of evil led by Russia and China
For now, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Ruttereaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine so that it continues to receive all “the strength of the transatlantic alliance” in the long term and as a priority. Rutte used the specter of a new axis of evil formed by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea to urge Trump to maintain support for Ukraine with money and weapons.
“Russia is getting closer to its allies Iran, North Korea and China” and “It is not only threatening Europe, but also the Indo-Pacific region and North America”Rutte said on Tuesday, before meeting in Paris with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
The Secretary General of NATO also threw a gauntlet of defiance at Beijing. According to Rutte, China is contributing to the war with its support for Russia’s economy and, specifically, its defense industry.
It is not the first time that Rutte provokes Beijing. “China has become a decisive facilitator of Russia’s war against Ukraine”said the new head of NATO a few days after taking office on October 1.
The Russian-Asian conspiracy
A week ago, after learning of Trump’s victory in the US elections, Rutte insisted on drawing that new axis of evil reflected in the presence of North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine together with Russian soldiers in the Russian Kursk region, attacked by the Ukrainians.
“Now that North Koreans are deployed in Russia, we see that more and more North Korea, Iran, China and, of course, Russia, are collaboratingworking together against Ukraine,” Rutte said.
To make the situation worse, this Wednesday, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-unsigned the new strategic partnership treaty with Russia. With this ratification, a defensive pact with Moscow is launched which contemplates mutual military assistance in the event of foreign aggression against one of the parties. The dispatch of more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers to the Ukrainian front is its first step.
According to a Ukrainian spokesman, a combined force of 50,000 Russian and North Korean soldiers are already participating in the Kursk offensive against thousands of Ukrainian troops who have remained entrenched in the south of that Russian region since last August.
US-led maneuvers in the China Sea
Japan, South Korea and the United States launched this Wednesday some military maneuvers in the East China Sea in response to the Russian-North Korean pact and with the objective of “demonstrating the firm will” of those countries to “promote interoperability and protect freedom for peace and the stability of the Indo-Pacific, including the Korean Peninsula.”
Japan and South Korea have become the pillars of the US strategy in the Asia-Pacific and They are viewed by NATO as advance guards of Western interests vis-à-vis Chinaas was evident in the last three summits of the Atlantic Alliance, in Madrid, Vilnius and Washington.
The Secretary General of NATO expressed his concern about the almost certainty that the Pyongyang regime is receiving Russian financing to boost missile manufacturingmany of them used against the Ukrainian army.
The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinkenthis Wednesday expressed his concern in Brussels about the possibility that Russia is also helping North Korea to strengthen its nuclear capacity.
Rutte completed his condemnation of the new axis of evil, a reincarnation of the one that justified the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s, with the denunciation of Iran as a supplier of drones to the Russian army fighting in Ukraine. Rutte accused Tehran and Moscow of destabilizing the Middle East and financing terrorism.
Macron asks for the green light for kyiv to attack Russia with Western missiles
The French president was not far behind in his open commitment to war to defeat Russia. According to Macron, the priority is for Ukraine to remain “strong.” And in a message undoubtedly addressed to Trump as a promoter of the idea of stopping the war as soon as possible, Macron warned that “nothing can be decided about Ukraine without the Ukrainians, nor about Europe without the Europeans.”
Macron is one of the European leaders who They are betting on authorizing the Ukrainian army to fire long-range missiles donated by the West against targets in Russian territory. A possibility that at the moment veto USA and also rejects Germany (second arms donor to Ukraine) given the very high risk that Russia will consider this step as a de facto declaration of war by NATO.
This Wednesday itself, The Kremlin threatened to unleash an “immediate and destructive” response if these missiles are used against Russia. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharovastated that this authorization would be equivalent to the “involvement of NATO countries in a direct conflict with Russia.”
NATO’s current stance is divided. About long-range missilesalthough Rutte points out that it should be each Western country that decides whether or not to give kyiv permission to use them against Russian soil, however, he emphasizes that It would be legal to do so if those targets pose a threat to Ukraine.
Both France and the United Kingdom have supplied Ukraine with these types of missiles, specifically the Scalp and the Storm Shadow, respectively, but They depend on American technology and Washington opposes giving approval for its use against Russian territoryas well as its own ATACMS missile systems.
That is why both Macron, like the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmerinsisted this week that the still American president, Joe Bidendeliver to Ukraine as many weapons as possible and give the most favorable orders in support of kyiv before Trump assumes his presidency on January 20.
Among those orders they expect from Biden is the permission to use long-range missiles.
“We cannot be content with Ukraine continuing to fight. We must make (Vladimir) Putin and his authoritarian friends who make his job easier pay a higher priceoffering Ukraine the support it needs to change the trajectory of the conflict,” Rutte said in a joint statement with Macron, which also underlined the need to increase European military spending to sustain the war in Ukraine and strengthen the common defense.
The French president opted to build the “European pillar of transatlantic security”, since, “for too long, “Europe has avoided taking charge of its own security.”. And this need to assume the military cost of the defense of Europe “is also what the US Administration rightly expects from the Europeans within the Alliance,” Macron added. Rutte praised, in this sense, that France has decided to dedicate more than 2% of its 2024 GDP to defense spending.
Social money to arm Ukraine and boost European military spending
The confidence placed by European NATO countries that decisive financial and military aid could turn around the conflict in Ukraine and put an end to the Russian advantage could materialize with changes in the EU budgets in order to boost military and arms spending on the old continent at the expense of social Europe.
As published this week in the newspaper Financial Times citing community officials, The European Commission plans to dedicate a third of the EU cohesion policy budget for the period 2021-2027estimated at 392 billion euros, to increase EU military spending, manufacture weapons and pay for supplies to Ukraine.
The Cohesion Fund is intended to reduce economic inequality within the EUspecifically in the least favored European regions. It is used, for example, to promote growth, employment and social cohesion.
If this plan is carried out, due to the uncertainty that Trump’s arrival to power produces in Brussels, a giant step will have been taken in the conversion of the European Union into a “defense union”as the president of the European Commission defends, Ursula von der Leyenrecently re-elected to her position and a staunch supporter of defeating Russia at any cost.
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