Vladimir Putin’s goal is “to subdue Ukraine, make it ‘return to the fold'”. But for the Russian president, Ukraine risks becoming “another Afghanistan”. To tell Adnkronos is Federigo Argentieri, professor of Political Sciences at John Cabot University in Rome, underlining that “NATO is reacting well”. “But the risks of war are there, there is no doubt about this“.
An expert on political affairs in Eastern Europe, Argentieri explains that “Putin has the myth of the Slavic triangle, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus which must be inseparable, inseparable”. But despite the invasion of Crimea, the war in the Donbass, Putin “fails to subdue Ukraine”. For him, “the ideal would be a coup to overthrow the current government, but I don’t think it will succeed.”
Another option, continues Argentieri, “is an invasion from east to south, to occupy the entire coast between Crimea and Russia, at the center of which is the city of Mariupol, or the north coast of the Sea of Azov. It would be strategically logical. This is a possibility. And against this I don’t know if Ukraine has the possibility to defend itself effectively. I would tend to rule out a general invasion, there could be pricks to the north on the Belarusian border to distract the Ukrainian army. “
“I don’t know what Putin has in mind, I don’t know if he has already decided what to do and is just buying time” – continues Argentieri – “his goal is to subdue Ukraine, ‘get it back to the fold’, while Ukraine instead does not want. The real issue is not Ukraine in NATO or not, but whether Ukraine is free to decide where it wants to go, and Putin wants to deny this right“. Putin risks ending up like the French general Oudinot,” who entered Rome in 1849, saying ‘the Italians don’t fight’. Putin thinks the same of the Ukrainians, but the Ukrainians are fighting all right “.
In the end “it could be another Afghanistan for Russia, mutatis mutandis”. And in Ukraine there are no Taliban or fanaticism, “but people who want to be normal”, concludes Argentieri, defining the “myth of Ukrainian Nazism” as “vomiting”, which is no longer even repeated by trolls, since it was false and ridiculous “.
“NATO has never promised Gorbachev not to extend to the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, it is a legend“, Argentieri continues.” Just look at Germany – he underlines – East Germany was in the Warsaw Pact and overnight it joined NATO. Because with the German reunification it was agreed that Germany would remain whole both in the EU and in NATO “.
What was promised to the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was big help from the German side, “Germany almost bought itself this right to remain in NATO even after unification. And in this way it took away the main brick under the pile of Warsaw Pact, which evaporated in less than a year “. Then Bill Clinton adopted “the right tactic” when he negotiated with the Russians the entry of former Warsaw Pact members into NATO, presenting it as a “security measure” to avoid disasters like in the former Yugoslavia. It had already been said of Germany that it was better “to have it anchored to NATO than to disarray”
“Was there a promise from Westerners not to go beyond the Warsaw Pact? I believe that there was not even this, because otherwise the entry in 2004 of the Baltics would not be explained” who were part of the former USSR argues Argentieri, while Moscow, in the context of the Ukrainian crisis, refers to alleged promises from the West.
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