Daily Archives: February 3, 2022

International concern about Russias provocative stance toward Ukraine continues, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin denies plans for an attack and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cautioned on Jan. 28, 2022, against the idea that there is war here.

Putin has built up more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, and the U.S. is ready to deploy thousands of troops. The U.S. has also asked the United Kingdom and other NATO allies to deploy hundreds of soldiers to Eastern Europe.

Putin says he will stand down if NATO prohibits Ukraine from joining its alliance a demand that has been rejected.

Understanding NATO and its history with Ukraine offers insight into the weight of this ultimatum.

NATO is a military alliance established in 1949 by the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and eight other European countries. Additional countries have since joined NATO most recently North Macedonia in 2020. Thirty nations are now part of the organization.

NATOs 4,200 staff members and member country embassies are headquartered on the outskirts of Brussels.

The alliance works with the United Nations, and the two are sometimes confused including in my classroom, where I teach history of the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

But NATO does have some things in common with the U.N. Both are international organizations that participating countries financially support. Both are dominated by the political influence of Western powers, including the U.S.But the organizations are not the same. NATO is designed to fight war, if necessary, with its military alliance. The U.N. works to avoid war through peacekeeping, political negotiations and other means.

NATOs key, traditional principle is collective defense. This means an attack on one or more members is considered an attack on all members.

NATO has invoked the collective defense principle only once: immediately after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when it deployed European military planes to patrol U.S. skies.

But NATO has used other political and legal means to justify engagement in the Kosovo War in former Yugoslavia during the 1990s and in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the 2000s. The U.S. interprets NATOs military mandate broadly, for example, as the right to use force whenever its members interests are at stake.

NATO has long responded to Russian military threats and served as a bulwark to protect against potential Soviet aggression during the Cold War.

Countries could vote by consensus to respond with military force to protect members in the event of any eventual Russian attack on Ukraine. But this military force would not directly protect Ukraine under the collective defense principle, as is not yet a NATO member.

Ukraine has had a partnership with NATO since 1992. NATO established a Ukraine-NATO commission in 1997, providing a discussion forum for security concerns and as a way to further the NATO-Ukraine relationship without a formal membership agreement.

Membership with NATO would significantly increase Ukraines international military backing, allowing for NATO military action within Ukraine and alongside members of its military. This guarantee of military might would act as a firm deterrent to Russian aggression.

NATO is clear about the limits of its support to nonmember countries. While it has supported nonmember countries like Afghanistan during humanitarian emergencies, NATO does not commit to deploying troops to a nonmember state.

Membership would draw Ukraine more firmly toward Europe, making it more likely that Ukraine could join the European Union another policy goal for Ukraine. Membership would also help the country build a closer relationship with the U.S.

Joining the alliance would also pull Ukraine further away from Russias sphere of influence.

But regional tensions could be exacerbated if Ukraine becomes a NATO member, as Russia has said it would interpret the alliances expansion as a direct threat.

While Ukraine is making progress toward gaining NATO membership, it is unlikely to join NATO quickly, if at all.

All NATO members must unanimously approve a new country, based on factors like a functioning democracy and unresolved external territorial disputes, so the Russian troops camped on Ukraines border pose a problem.

NATO membership is open to any European country that can contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area. Aspiring member countries follow a Membership Action Plan, an application process that involves countries detailing their security and political policies. It can take a country 20 years to complete the plan and gain admittance, as in the case of North Macedonia.

Former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma publicly announced Ukraines interest in NATO membership in May 2002.

Ukraine then applied for a Membership Action Plan in 2008. This process stalled in 2010 under former President Viktor Yanukovich, a Putin-backed politician who did not want to pursue a NATO relationship.

Ukraine has more recently re-energized its plans to join NATO, especially in the face of the building Russia-Ukraine conflict and Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In 2017, Ukraine adopted a constitutional amendment that committed itself to NATO membership.

Ukraine then adopted a National Security Strategy aimed at developing its NATO partnership in 2021.

The NATO application process has been dragging on for an indecently long time, Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in September 2021.

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An independent and sovereign Ukraine would support NATOs goal of Euro-Atlantic stability, even if Ukraine has expressed greater urgency than NATO to join the alliance.

But Ukraine joining NATO now would, quite simply, be a liability. The threat of an imminent conflict between Ukraine and Russia would commit NATO to take military action against Russia.

See the rest here:
What's NATO, and why does Ukraine want to join? - The Conversation AU

BRUSSELS The confrontation between Russia and the United States over Ukraine deepened on Wednesday, as leaked documents confirmed the U.S. and NATO rejection of key Russian security demands, while the Biden administration ordered 3,000 additional troops into Eastern Europe.

Although the leaked documents showed the United States had offered to provide more transparency about missile deployments in Eastern Europe, the basic message to Moscow was American and NATO resolve not to bow to Russian demands, in a dispute that has pushed relations to their worst since the Soviet era.

The broad outlines of the U.S. and NATO written replies to the Kremlin had already been known and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Tuesday that Moscows demands had basically been ignored, even as he said his government was still analyzing the responses.

But the publication of those answers provided additional detail and reinforced the obstacles to a resolution, as fears escalated in the West about the large Russian troop buildup surrounding Ukraine.

Even as diplomacy aimed at defusing the crisis intensified on Wednesday, the responses, delivered to the Kremlin last week, underscored the pressure on Mr. Putin to decide whether to go to war over demands the West has rejected or to take up the opportunity to negotiate arms control agreements offered by the West. He said on Tuesday that the United States was trying to goad Russia into war.

The American and NATO replies to Russia were obtained and published by El Pas, the Spanish daily, and confirmed by John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.

I note that in the past few hours a proposal made by the United States leaked to a European news outlet, Mr. Kirby said. We did not make this document public, but now that it is, it confirms to the entire world what weve been saying.

President Bidens new troop deployment order appeared aimed at reinforcing the message that the United States and its 29 NATO partners were unified in their resolve, and at reassuring NATO members closer to the Russian border.

The troops, including 1,000 already in Germany, will head to NATO members Poland and Romania, Mr. Kirby, said, though there remains no intention of sending troops into Ukraine. He said the deployment was meant to be temporary.

We are making it clear that we are going to be prepared to defend our NATO allies if it comes to that, Mr. Kirby said.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in explaining the deployment that there was no question that Russia and President Putin has continued to take escalatory, not de-escalatory steps.

The initial response from Moscow was negative. The unfounded destructive steps will only fuel military tensions and narrow the field for political decisions, Aleksandr V. Grushko, a deputy foreign minister, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

The developments came as top European leaders pushed a diplomatic outreach to Mr. Putin. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain spoke with him by phone, and Mr. Johnsons office said they had agreed on the need for a peaceful resolution and that aggravation was in no ones interest.

President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has spoken with Mr. Putin at least twice in the past week, spoke with Mr. Biden later Wednesday. In a readout of their phone call, the French presidency said the two leaders had shared the same logic of de-escalation. Mr. Macron is scheduled to talk with the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Poland on Thursday.

Olaf Scholz, Germanys new chancellor, told the German broadcaster ZDF that he planned to meet with Mr. Putin soon but did not specify a date.

Moscow issued its security demands in mid-December, as the West sounded alarms about a potential invasion of Ukraine. Among the most contentious were Russias insistence that Ukraine, a former Soviet republic of 44 million, never be allowed to join NATO, and that the West scale back its military presence in Eastern Europe to mid-1990s levels.

Mr. Putin wants to expand Moscows sphere of influence to something resembling the one it had before the Soviet Unions collapse 30 years ago. He has described the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO as a threat not just to Russia, but to world peace.

If Ukraine were to align itself fully with the West and acquire NATO weapons, he suggested on Tuesday, it might go to war to recapture Crimea which Russia seized in 2014, a move unrecognized by the international community. That, he said, could lead to war between Russia and the NATO bloc.

Feb. 3, 2022, 2:31 p.m. ET

Mr. Putin, whose renewed troop buildup along Ukraines borders led to the current crisis, has regularly expressed concern that NATOs Aegis missile-defense systems in Romania and Poland could also fire offensive Tomahawk cruise missiles at Russia. NATO and Washington insist that the systems are only defensive and are not aimed not at Russia but at other possible adversaries, like Iran.

In its response, the Biden administration proposes a reciprocal transparency mechanism under which Russia could verify the absence of offensive missiles at the sites in Romania and Poland, while the United States would do the same at two missile-launching bases of its choice in Russian territory; one would likely be in Kaliningrad, the slice of Russia bordering two NATO members, Lithuania and Poland.

Moscow has stationed intermediate-range missiles in Kaliningrad that can carry conventional and nuclear warheads, one reason the United States and its allies abandoned the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the I.N.F. Treaty, in 2019.

Ukraines foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, endorsed on Wednesday another U.S. proposal to help defuse the crisis: an assurance that it would not deploy offensive missiles or permanently base ground troops in Ukraine. The proposal was presented to Russia as contingent on consultations with the Ukrainian government.

The United States and its NATO allies say they have no combat troops or missiles in Ukraine, and no intention of deploying offensive military capabilities there. They have also made clear that they would not wage war against Russia to defend Ukraine, which is not covered by NATOs commitment to collective defense.

Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.

The Kremlins position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATOs eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscows military buildupwas a response to Ukraines deepening partnership with the alliance.

NATO promised in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia could one day join the alliance, though it appears no closer to happening now than it did then. The pledge infuriated Mr. Putin, who was already incensed that NATO had added the former Soviet Baltic republics and former Soviet satellites like Poland.

The Russian president has been trying ever since to ensure NATOs door remains shut, including to Finland and Sweden.

The offer to rule out future U.S. deployments in Ukraine addressed a concern Mr. Putin has raised repeatedly: that if Ukraine were to join the alliance, missiles deployed there could reach Moscow in mere minutes.

But it was not a clear-cut concession to Russia. The proposal called for reciprocal commitments by both Russia and the United States to refrain from deploying missiles or troops in Ukraine. Not only has Russia annexed Crimea, it also backs a separatist insurgency that holds a slice of eastern Ukraine.

I would like to note that while the United States has neither missiles nor combat units in Ukraine, Russia has both, Mr. Kuleba said in a video call with foreign journalists. And if this proposal is accepted on a reciprocal basis, that will imply that Russia has to withdraw. So, no, we have no objections.

Mr. Kuleba said he remained hopeful, in part simply because the diplomacy was continuing despite warnings from Western governments, starting months ago, that an intervention could begin in December or January, and now we are at the beginning of February.

In the leaked documents, the United States also proposed negotiations with Moscow on other arms-control measures, announced publicly in Washington in the past. They include a treaty to replace the current New START accord limiting intercontinental-range missiles, and talks to enhance transparency on military exercises and reduce the risk of accidental conflict.

The United States is also prepared to discuss another Russian concern, known as the indivisibility of security the idea that a nation may not seek to increase its security at the expense of anothers.

But Washington rejected any restraint on the rights of any sovereign country to choose or change its security arrangements, including treaties of alliance.

Both Washington and NATO also rejected the Russian demand that they negotiate separate treaties with Moscow that would require them to remove all troops and equipment from NATO member countries that border Russia, including Poland and the Baltic States.

Washington insisted that NATOs enhanced forward battalions in Poland and the Baltic countries, established after Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists in eastern Ukraine, were not permanent, since they rotate. It said those deployments, totaling 5,000 troops, did not constitute substantial combat forces, in accordance with a 1997 agreement between NATO and Russia.

Instead, the documents say that any more Russian buildup or aggression aimed at Ukraine will force the United States and our Allies to strengthen our defensive posture.

The documents that the United States and NATO provided to Moscow are relatively general in tone and do not attempt to draft treaty language. Instead, they set out for Russia where the United States and NATO are prepared to engage in negotiations once Russia de-escalates around Ukraine.

El Pas did not describe how it obtained the documents; the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said on Wednesday that Russian authorities had not released them.

Steven Erlanger reported from Brussels and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine. Michael Crowley, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Washington, Roger Cohen from Paris, Shashank Bengali and Marc Santora from London, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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U.S. and NATO Don't Budge in Answering Russian Demands - The New York Times

Nowhere is the credibility of the United States and its allies at greater risk than in the Baltic Sea region. NATOs Article 5 pledges the alliance to defend its members. Doing that for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuaniathree thinly populated states squeezed between Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic Seais hard. Years of cost-cutting, timidity, and wishful thinking by NATO governments make it harder.

As the Russian military buildup around Ukraine raises fears of a broader East-West security crisis, NATO allies are hastening to bolster the Baltic states defenses while non-NATO members Sweden and Finland are tightening their ties with the alliance. In late January, U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters arrived in Estonia as part of a wide-ranging reassurance effort. At bases elsewhere in Europe and the United States, 8,500 U.S. military personnel are on heightened alert, ready to deploy to the region as part of NATOs 40,000-strong Response Force.

These moves, though desirable, are belated and insufficient. Regional security in the Baltic Sea has been a problem for much longer than the current standoff with Russia. Solving this requires more than a one-off, reactive deployment. With Ben Hodges, a former U.S. Army commander in Europe and now my colleague at the Center for European Policy Analysis, I have spent the past year deep in the weeds, looking at the problems of Baltic Sea regional security and how to fix them.

Nowhere is the credibility of the United States and its allies at greater risk than in the Baltic Sea region. NATOs Article 5 pledges the alliance to defend its members. Doing that for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuaniathree thinly populated states squeezed between Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic Seais hard. Years of cost-cutting, timidity, and wishful thinking by NATO governments make it harder.

As the Russian military buildup around Ukraine raises fears of a broader East-West security crisis, NATO allies are hastening to bolster the Baltic states defenses while non-NATO members Sweden and Finland are tightening their ties with the alliance. In late January, U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters arrived in Estonia as part of a wide-ranging reassurance effort. At bases elsewhere in Europe and the United States, 8,500 U.S. military personnel are on heightened alert, ready to deploy to the region as part of NATOs 40,000-strong Response Force.

These moves, though desirable, are belated and insufficient. Regional security in the Baltic Sea has been a problem for much longer than the current standoff with Russia. Solving this requires more than a one-off, reactive deployment. With Ben Hodges, a former U.S. Army commander in Europe and now my colleague at the Center for European Policy Analysis, I have spent the past year deep in the weeds, looking at the problems of Baltic Sea regional security and how to fix them.

On the surface, everything looks fine. NATO allies have stationed so-called enhanced forward presence tripwire forces, roughly 1,000 troops strong, in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. These units obviously cannot withstand a Russian assault; they are there to make sure the Kremlin knows an attack on the Baltic states would also be an attack on other NATO members. In nearby Poland, the United States has a more substantial presence of 5,000 service members. The Baltic states and Poland play their part too: Their defense budgets exceed the minimum 2 percent of GDP mandated by NATO. These funds are spent wisely, including on modern weaponry that could at least slow, and thus help deter, a Russian attack.

Across the Baltic Sea, Sweden and Finland have also been boosting their spending. These two non-NATO countries have close military ties with each other as well as NATO. Neighboring Norway, though not a littoral state, is closely involved in Baltic Sea security through its logistical, intelligence, and military aviation capabilities. Denmark has upended its previous defense posture, which discounted any need for territorial and regional defense. Combined, Poland plus the Nordic countries and three Baltic states have a greater GDP than Russias. Their combined defense spending is around half of Russiasbut the Kremlin has global ambitions, such as space weapons, a blue-water navy, and a strategic nuclear arsenal.

The black hole in the regions security is Germany. Its size and location would add crucial heft, but the other countries around the Baltic Sea are privately mistrustful of decision-makers in Berlin. Germany has backed the two Nord Stream natural gas pipelines along the Baltic seabed. Other countries in the region see them as a grave threat, entrenching the Kremlins dominance of the regions energy supply. (In a countermove, Poland has just built a pipeline to Norway to secure another source of gas.) In the event of a Russian provocation, would Germany back deterrence or call for dialog and compromise? Germanys shilly-shallying over Ukraine, which included banning Estonia from donating some much-needed howitzers to the beleaguered Ukrainians, have intensified doubts. Last week, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks described Germanys approach as immoral and hypocritical.

Many think that NATOs presence in the region has gone far enough already. Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded NATO withdraw all outside forces from the region and commit to Sweden and Finland never being allowed to join.

Yet below the surface, the regions defense and security arrangements, far from threatening Russia, look troublingly flimsy. In our Center for European Policy Analysis report, we identified more than a dozen serious problems. It starts with the Wests attitude to Russia. Politicians and decision-makers in the region still have radically different threat assessments. The Baltic states have been sounding the alarm since the 1990s. Other countries are much later to the party and more cautious in what they sayand thats before you get to the huge problem of Germany.

These differing threat assessments and political approaches are obstacles to everything else. Intelligence collection and sharing are hampered by the gulf between NATO and non-NATO members. Washington jealously guards its best intelligencefor example, anything involving Russian submarines. Even within NATO, there are inner and outer circles. For example, there is the British-U.S. intelligence-sharing agreement, which also includes the other so-called Five Eyes: Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Military mobilitythe vital business of moving large numbers of troops and equipmentis patchy too. There is no common maritime strategy, though control of the Baltic Sea in a crisis will determine what happens on land. Systems to defend ground targets against air and missile attacks are costly. No country in the region has enough of these defensive systems, and some have none. NATOs small air policing deploymenttypically just four warplanes based in Estonia or Lithuaniais there to deal with peacetime problems, such as airspace intrusions, not to fight off the Russian Air Force.

The command structure is like a bowl of spaghetti. Each country guards its national decision-making jealously. Although the Baltic states are one small operational area in military terms, they have three national headquarters, each commanding pint-sized forces. NATO has two divisional and one corps headquarters, with Estonian and Latvian forces under a Danish headquarters that is based partly in Denmark and partly based in Latvia. The two other headquarters are in Poland. Further up the hierarchy, NATOs main land forces headquarters is in the Netherlandsbut splits taking charge on a six-month rotating basis with its naval counterpart in Naples, Italy. Behind all that is the regional U.S. headquarters in Poland and its main headquarters for Europe in Virginia. Somewhere else are the Brits with their Joint Expeditionary Forcea 10-nation military framework for rapid deploymentand the Germany-based Joint Support and Enabling Command, which is meant to ensure that the right forces are in the right place at the right time. Confused yet? And I havent even mentioned the five-nation Nordic Defence Cooperation framework, the French-led European Intervention Initiative, and, of course, the European Unions own nascent defense efforts: battle groups that mainly exist on paper.

The assumption is that in a crisis, this spaghetti will spontaneously straighten under the pressure of events and thanks to U.S. leadership. It would be good to test that assumption with realistic, hard exercises where decision-makers can practice surmounting the bureaucratic and physical obstacles hampering effectiveness in real time. Current exercises in the region are too small, too well scripted, and too devoid of complexity. Planners are given many months to ensure that everything goes smoothly. All too often, the highlight is a distinguished visitor day closer to a theatrical performance than a training event, where participants identify problems by experiencing them.

NATO exercises used to be different: harder, bigger, and costlier. In Cold War West Germany, for example, British and U.S. tanks would thunder across farmland, crushing hedges and ruining crops. A jeep would follow behind with an officer bearing cash and checks to compensate farmers for their losses. Road closures were common, as were bouts of deafening nighttime noise. Such inconveniences and costs are the price of securityand of freedom. Nowadays, civilian life takes precedence. That reflects a much deeper issue: Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has been an organization designed for peace, not war. That was a defensibleif optimisticassumption in the 1990s. It is dangerously outdated now.

All of these issues involving NATO and the Baltic littoral states are coming to a head in the current standoff with Russia. Putins proposed veto on enlarging NATO any further directly infringes on the sovereignty and security of Finland and Sweden, which have for years maintained that though they do not wish to join the alliance right now, they have the right to apply should they choose to. Russias growing military presence in Belarus highlights the vulnerability of the Suwalki corridor, the thin neck of land connecting the Baltic states and Poland. Putins threat to respond to NATO with military-technical measures could easily involve the deployment of medium-range missiles, perhaps even nuclear-armed weapons, in Russias Kaliningrad exclave. Russian cyberattacks and sub-threshold warfare are already evident; Sweden, for example, is worried by mysterious drone flights.

How can NATOs problems in the Baltic region be fixed? One of the easier steps would be to align the regions security objectives by compiling and publishing a common threat assessment. An unclassified version would boost public awareness. The classified version would form the basis for military planning, exercises, and budgeting. For more than 20 years, Estonias counterintelligence service has published a hard-hitting annual report about Russian subversion and other threats. Although this may give the Kremlin clues about sources, methods, and targeting, the benefits in terms of deterrence, political will, and societal resilience are much greater.

This highlights our next recommendation: fostering a public security culture that increases not only military resistance but also economic, social, and political resilience. Finland is the standout example of this, with military conscription, extensive training for civilian decision-makers, counter-disinformation training in schools, and regular exercises.

The tripwire forces in the Baltic states are currently hostagesa reminder to the Kremlin that an attack on what Russian hard-liners regard as renegade provinces would also mean tangling with Britain, France, and Germany. These deployments need to be on a war-fighting footing. It is therefore time to plug the gaping holes in air and missile defense as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. Some of these are expensive, and the countries that need them most cannot afford them. Rich countries that are farther from the front line should pay to have them where they matter most. Proper intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilitieswhich combine drone, sensor, and satellite capabilities with modern computing powercreate an unblinking eye that can look deep inside Russia, identifying what Kremlin forces are doing long before a crisis actually develops. Rewriting the rules on data-sharing with non-NATO members Sweden and Finland would maximize the usefulness of these insights.

NATO needs to change too, writing a new strategic conceptin essence, the alliances manifestoto more clearly stress defense against and deterrence of a Russian attack in the region. The European Unions fumbling efforts to codify its approach to common security and defense policy need clear language on military preparedness and its willingness to use force in response to aggression.

Decision-making needs streamlining. It is the United States that makes the NATO security guarantee fully credible. It therefore makes sense for the senior U.S. officer on the continentthe Supreme Allied Commander Europe, known as SACEURto have the political preauthorization they need to issue orders in circumstances short of war. By the time the North Atlantic Council, NATOs political body, has met, been briefed, deliberated, ironed out potentially dissenting views from countries such as Hungary, and reached a decision, it could be too late. A lightning attack by Russian forces, likely following a period of intense, artificially created confusion, could reach the Baltic Sea or cut the Suwalki corridor in a matter of hours.

Above all, NATO needs exercises. The best way to increase the internal and external credibility of defense is to practice using difficult scenarios in real time. These must include surprises, disruptions, escalations, and hard decision-making, with advanced technology at the forefront. A good result of these exercises would be if they produced numerous embarrassments. For example, a Polish exercise last year, despite making generous assumptions about their access to advanced weaponry, ended with Polish forces being slaughtered in five days and the Russians poised to take Warsaw.

That caused a furor in Polandbut the brickbats should have been bouquets. Nobody in Polandor, for that matter, anyone else involved in the regions securitywould claim privately that defenses against Russia are adequate. For everyone living around the Baltic Sea, it will be better to find their shortcomings early and fix them than to wait until the enemy is at the gates.

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NATO Is Dangerously Exposed in the Baltic - Foreign Policy

In the current tense climate, Russian President Vladimir Putin knows that he has true friends in the European Union. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn is certainly one. On February 1, he turned up in Moscow for talks with the Russian leader, as the threat of an invasion by some 100,000 Russian troops and heavy weaponry hung over Ukraine.

The official reason for his visit was to negotiate additional volumes of natural gas, following the signing of a 15-year supply agreement with Gazprom back in September last year. The Hungarian prime minister has brushed off criticism of the trip by the opposition and insisted that he was pursing the countrys economic interests and the cause of peace.

Orbn may appear to be breaking ranks with NATO and the EU in the hope of capitalising on his special ties to the Kremlin and there may be others in Eastern Europe that are careful not to displease Moscow. But that does not necessarily mean there is weakness in the alliances Eastern flank. If anything, the ongoing regional developments demonstrate the value of NATO membership to Central and Eastern European states, including Hungary.

For one, there is no support for Moscows demand that NATO move out its troops and military assets from the region, including in Hungary. In fact, according to media reports, the Hungarian defence ministry is currently negotiating the deployment of NATO forces in the country, in response to the crisis in Ukraine.

In the rest of Central Europe, Orbns political games do not seem to have resonance. The Polish government of the Law and Justice Party, which often joins its Hungarian counterpart in challenging the EU, has been one of the most vociferous advocates of a robust NATO response to Russias brinkmanship in Ukraine, going as far as criticising Germanys reluctance to supply arms to Ukraine.

On February 1, as Orbn was heading to Moscow, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki landed in Kyiv where he promised military assistance to Ukrainians.

Romania, another country where there is no love lost for Russia, has also stood firmly in support of a strong NATO response to Russian threats. President Klaus Iohannis was calling for more American boots on the ground well before the current crisis started heating up and applaudedUS President Joe Bidens recent announcement that 8,500 US troops would be put on alert for a possible deployment along the Eastern flank.

In the three Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia Russia is also unequivocally seen as a major threat, especially after its 2014 annexation of Crimea. For this reason, since 2016, they have been eagerly hosting a multinational NATO force an initiative known in the military diplomatic lingo as forward presence.

Still, Orbn is not alone. There are other governments in the region which are loathe to pick fights with Putin. On January 25, Croatian President Zoran Milanovi threw a bombshell with his declaration that Zagreb will not participate in a NATO military operation in Ukraine (as if one was in the works), calling it one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovi had to dispel the ensuing confusion with a public statement and issue an apology to the Ukrainian people.

Bulgaria is another example. In recent days, Bulgarian Defence Minister Stefan Yanev has gone out of his way to make statements against NATO deployments in the Black Sea country. In a TV interview, Yanev declared that in case of an escalation in Ukraine, Bulgaria would be protected by Bulgarian forces under Bulgarian command.

Of course, such pronouncements are only halfway sincere. For one, military bases in Bulgaria, as well as in neighbouring Romania, already host US troops for training and force projection purposes, as part of a military cooperation agreement signed with the US in 2006. And as in the Baltics, NATO allies also carry out air policing in Bulgaria. In fact, on January 21, the Dutch defence ministry announced it would send F-35 fighter jets to beef up the mission. In other words, NATO is already present militarily in Bulgaria which it sees as a front-line state.

Regardless of public pronouncements and political games of some politicians from NATOs Eastern members, the ongoing standoff around Ukraine has proven to Central and Eastern Europeans the value of NATO membership. Had it not been for the security guarantees extended by the US and its allies, the countries of the former Warsaw Pact could have faced the same predicament as Kyiv. At the minimum, they would have been more vulnerable to what scholar Mark Galeotti describes as the Kremlins heavy metal diplomacy the use of military threats to coerce neighbouring governments into making concessions.

That applies as much to the hawks in Poland, Romania and the Baltic countries as it does to the doves in Budapest and Sofia. Orbn will no doubt continue to play his complex game, trying to win favours from the Russians, but he will do so from the security of being within NATO as well as the EU. The Bulgarian cabinet may take extra care not to provoke Russia but, in the end, it still depends on the extra layer of protection the Atlantic Alliance offers for its national security.

When the chips are down, all Central and Eastern European countries will go along with the Western response to Russia, whether it is tougher sanctions or additional troop deployments on NATOs borders. Some in the region might have second thoughts about it, complain in public, or keep their head down out of fear from Russian reprisals, but the direction of travel is clear.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Is there a weakness in NATOs Eastern flank? - Al Jazeera English

LONDON British lawmakers will be asked to consider legislation this week that would let ministers impose a wider range of sanctions against Russia should it move against Ukraine, the British foreign secretary said Sunday.

The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, outlined the plan in an interview with the broadcaster Sky News, presenting it as part of a broad range of efforts to deter further aggression from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Britain is already supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine and has offered to increase its troop deployments elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

Also on Sunday, Russias foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said that Russia would seek clarity from NATO on its intentions days after the United States and its allies delivered a formal rejection to Moscows demands that NATO retreat from Eastern Europe and bar Ukraine from joining the alliance.

Mr. Lavrovs comments in an interview with Russias main government television channel suggested that while Moscow is displeased as expected with the Western response, there may still be a flicker of hope for further diplomacy.

But if diplomacy fails, Ms. Truss said, the British legislation will give the country more punitive options, so there will be nowhere to hide for oligarchs or any company of interest to the Kremlin and the regime in Russia. Britain has long been a financial hub for Russias wealthy and well connected, with one British parliamentary report describing London as a laundromat for illicit Russian money.

While the British Parliament typically takes weeks or months to pass a bill, emergency procedures allow it to legislate in as little as a day under some circumstances.

Ms. Truss said Britain would rule nothing out and would look at every option to support Ukraine, as the British government and its allies pursue diplomacy at the same time as developing economically punitive measures that might persuade Mr. Putin not to invade.

Were doing all we can through deterrence and diplomacy to urge him to desist, Ms. Truss, who plans to meet with Ukraines president and the Russian foreign minister in the next two weeks, told the BBC.

Biden administration officials reiterated on Sunday that the United States believes a Russian invasion is imminent, even if Ukraine has been trying to play down the crisis.

We have been nothing but clear and transparent about our concerns here at the Pentagon over the rapid buildup for the last few months around the border with Ukraine and in Belarus, the Pentagons press secretary, John F. Kirby, said on Fox News Sunday.

Feb. 3, 2022, 12:25 p.m. ET

On CNNs State of the Union, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, made a joint appearance with the panels top Republican, Senator Jim Risch of Idaho. Mr. Menendez said there was an incredibly strong bipartisan resolve to have severe consequences for Russia if it invades Ukraine, and in some cases for what it has already done.

Mr. Menendez said that legislation under discussion was expected to include massive sanctions against the most significant Russian banks: crippling to their economy, meaningful in terms of consequences to the average Russian and their accounts and pensions.

Sanctions, though, were not Mr. Lavrovs focus on Sunday NATO was.

He said an official request was sent Sunday to both NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an alliance that includes Russia. Mr. Lavrov described it as an urgent demand to explain how they intend to fulfill their obligation not to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others.

If they do not intend to, then they must explain why, Mr. Lavrov said, adding that this will be the key question in determining our further proposals, which we will report to Russias president.

The Kremlin has been highly critical of NATOs so-called open-door policy of granting membership to former Communist bloc countries without taking Russias security concerns into account. In his remarks, Mr. Lavrov reiterated a frequent Kremlin complaint that NATO, in the years since the Soviet collapse, had crept ever closer to Russias border.

Now theyve come up to Ukraine, and they want to drag that country in, Mr. Lavrov said. Though everyone understands that Ukraine is not ready and will make no contribution to strengthening NATO security.

Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.

The Kremlins position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATOs eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscows military buildupwas a response to Ukraines deepening partnership with the alliance.

As the temperature stayed high between most of the West and Russia, one bit of statesmanship did apparently succeed. Russia backed out of a plan to conduct naval exercises next week in international waters off Irelands coast, which had drawn protests from Irish fishing groups and the Irish government.

The drills were set to take place 150 miles off Irelands southwest coast, outside its territorial waters but within Irelands exclusive economic zone, an area where the country has sovereign rights over marine resources.

Fishing groups raised concerns that the activity could disrupt marine life and jeopardize an important region for their trade. One organization had planned to peacefully protest the exercises.

Irelands foreign minister, Simon Coveney, described the proposed drills in an interview last week with the Irish public broadcaster RTE as simply not welcome and not wanted right now.

While acknowledging that Russias plans did not breach the international law of the sea, he said in a statement that his department had raised several concerns with Russian authorities in light of the current political and security environment in Europe.

Moscow then decided to relocate the exercises outside of the Irish exclusive economic zone as a gesture of good will, the Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yuriy Filatov, said in a statement released on Saturday.

Mr. Coveney said on Twitter that he welcomed Russias response.

Emily Cochrane and Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington, and Michael Schwirtz from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Britain Toughens Stance on Russia, as Russia Presses NATO for Assurances - The New York Times