US President Joe Biden on Wednesday ordered the deployment of 2,000 US troops to Poland and Germany, further escalating the crisis with Russia over Ukraine.
According to the White House, leaked to American media, such as the CNN network, another thousand of the country’s soldiers who are in Europe will be repositioned to Romania, a former communist country in the east of the continent.
Numerically, the displacement pales in comparison to the roughly 130,000, according to the latest Western estimate, Russian troops encircling Ukraine in a mobilization that began in November.
Politically, however, the signal to the Kremlin is serious. Biden had already left 8,500 troops, in the US and Europe, on guard for this type of reinforcement, which had only been considered in case the Russians acted against Ukraine.
The day before, President Vladimir Putin had accused the US and NATO, the military alliance that Washington has led against Moscow since 1949, of pushing Russia into a war it does not want. The current crisis, in terms of the commitment of the great nuclear powers, is already on par with or even surpasses that of 2014.
The year is key to understanding what is happening today. The pro-Russian government in Kiev was overthrown, and Putin responded by annexing the ethnic Russian-majority Crimea peninsula, as well as fomenting a civil war of like-minded separatists in Donbass (eastern Ukraine).
The result was a conflict that, although in a precarious ceasefire since 2015, has already killed 14,000 people. In April of last year, Putin had mobilized forces for weeks in exercises seen as threatening, having sensed a move by Kiev to try to reoccupy Donbass.
It was an appetizer for November. The escalation of forces, in the form of military exercises and deployment of troops and weapons, seems to be aimed at lending credence to the idea that Putin can come to blows again.
At the same time, the Russian denies such an intention, and with good reason: a war would be destructive in human terms and for its economy, as well as risking spiraling out of control and involving NATO countries – Ukraine wants to, but is not part of the club of 30 nations.
With the situation in place, Putin went further and drew up in an ultimatum his terms to achieve stability in the region. Most importantly, reflow troops deployed by NATO in ex-communist countries absorbed in the post-Cold War expansion from 1999 onwards and permanently veto Ukraine’s entry into the team.
The US and NATO, of course, rejected the idea, but left open negotiation doors suggested by the Russians in the field of arms control, positioning of side-by-side intermediate-range missiles and monitoring of military exercises.
Putin accepted the idea, muttering something about possible dialogue in his interview on Tuesday. On the other hand, members of his government are clear about the possible need for a military measure, even if indirect – such as the aforementioned military involvement with allied regimes in the US backyard, such as Cuba or Venezuela.
But the Russian leader’s belligerent tone remained loud, and Biden has now doubled down.
American forces will operate under the NATO flag. The alliance now has about 5,000 multinational troops in four countries close to Russia’s borders: the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), which were part of the Soviet Union and border Putin’s lands, and Poland, Belarus’ neighbor, which today it houses Russian forces in exercises.
The symbolic question posed is: what if an American soldier is killed in an eventual skirmish at a border? If he is worth the same as an Estonian, an obviousness, politically the weight of such an episode changes level and that is what Biden wants to emphasize.
In addition, there is an intention to calm the eastern members of NATO, already critical of Europe’s unwillingness to get involved in the crisis, even for its interests in Russian natural gas. Biden and other Western leaders have already made it clear that they will not send troops to Ukraine, but the idea of militarizing the surroundings is meant to reinforce the impression that the bloc’s collective security will be a priority.
Meanwhile, alliance countries are trying to help Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kiev by sending weapons. The US and UK, for example, provided anti-tank guided missiles, something vital in the event of an armored invasion of the country. At the same time, his chancellor defended this Wednesday a negotiated exit, noting that there will soon be a new meeting with Russians, Germans and French.
Finally, Putin travels on Thursday (3) to China, where he will gain an equally or more important symbolic reinforcement: leader Xi Jinping supports Russian demand in Ukraine, as well as receiving Russian support in his interests in the Pacific, such as in Taiwan. .
If there is no formal military alliance between the countries, clearly a bloc against Western initiatives has been forming in recent years between Moscow and Beijing, which expands the range of opportunities for Putin to resist the economic pressure of possible sanctions if the war breaks out in Ukraine. .
Source: Folha
