Since the USA has warned that Russia is 70 percent ready to invade and could overrun Kyiv in a few days, debates and concerns have been triggered among analysts, political pundits and experts about the prevalent situation. However, Russia has rebutted any claim to invade Ukraine and said that its manoeuvres are just for its vital security interest and blamed NATO for undermining regional security. But Ukraine is not on the same page; on the one hand, it turns down any risk of invasion. On the other hand, it is preparing civilians for invasion.
Here the questions are that if Russia does not plan to invade, why has it massed such a high number of soldiers on the Ukrainian border? Why are the USA and NATO taking the chance of invasion so seriously, if Ukraine rejects the possibility of any invasion? Is it really a tragedy in making? What will be its consequences?
Before answering these questions, let’s go through the history to extrapolate the causes of this tinderbox properly.
Historically, the Russio-Ukranian crisis is not novel, but it traces back to 2013-14. When after independence, Ukraine set apart its Russian legacy and forged compact ties with the west.  When Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych rejected an association agreement with Europe in favour of closer ties with Russia, this caused protests and he was removed from power in 2014. In response, as some believe, Moscow had annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and supported separatist rebellions which broke out in Ukraine’s east.
Then, a blame game started. Ukraine and the West blamed Russia for sending its troops and weapons to support the rebels, Moscow defied these claims. Instead, it chastised the USA and its NATO allies for weapons and joint drills with Ukraine, which she believed would encourage Ukraine to fight and its regional security would be destabilized.
Coming to the recent situation, simply answering the questions, Russia is afraid of Ukraine’s wish to join NATO, which Moscow claims is a red line and causes concerns about the set-up of NATO members near its border, where NATO members, as it assumes, will set military training centres that ultimately will give them a foothold in the region which will be a looming danger for Russia.
To evade this, Russia, in December, had sent a security demand document to the USA which was seeking guarantees for halting NATO measures of setting up weapon systems that threaten Moscow in close vicinity to its territory. But Russian demands were nixed by the USA and NATO. Consequently, as Russia is concerned about its security interest, it deemed it necessary to place this humongous number of soldiers on the border, but from the USA and NATO it sounds like an imminent tragedy knocking at the door of Ukraine: US intelligence has even predicted the number of casualties, if Russia invades.
To assist Ukraine, the Pentagon has put 8,500 US troops on standby for an Eastern deployment. To add to this, Biden has commanded to deploy additional US troops to Poland, Romania, and Germany to substantiate the USA’s commitment to NATO’s eastern side amid tensions between Russia and Ukraine, since Poland borders both Russia and Ukraine, and Romania just borders Ukraine. Also, hundreds more infantry troops of the 82nd Airborne Division are expected to arrive at the Rzeszow Jasionka airport, which is 56 miles away from Poland’s border with Ukraine. Besides, NATO is sending ships and jets. Since Ukraine is still not a member of NATO, the US and NATO soldiers cannot enter Ukraine to fight on their behalf.
War is not a solution to any conflict; instead it fuels crisis. To resolve the issue, both countries should come to talks so that without any devastation conflict is settled and any tragedy, which is in making, should be prevented.
Apart from them, Germany on its own plans to send a field medical facility but ruled out supplying arms, even after the Ukraine embassy’s request with a list pertaining to missile defence system, tools for electronic warfare, night vision goggles, digital radios, radar stations and military ambulances.
Besides getting civilian assistance, Ukraine has started drills with civilians to train them for any possible invasion. On the contrast, Olesksiy Reznokov, Minister of Defence of Ukraine, verbalized that the most realistic scenario could be any effort to destabilize Ukraine internally because the Kremlin dreams that its forces will be warmly welcomed on the streets of Kyiv, Odessa, Dnipro or Lviv. But the reality differs. Actually, this will not happen in the full-scale aggression. And, it is no longer possible to seize administrative buildings, take advantage of a pro-Soviet population like 2014, so Ukrainians need to be ready for it and fill all gaps.
In response, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that such manoeuvres only added to an already tense atmosphere and the USA is escalating tensions. Russia is watching such manoeuvres with concerns. Also, it is constantly urging US partners to stop escalating tensions on the European continent and accuses the USA and NATO for toiling to contain Russia.
Moreover, there are various other allegations on Moscow, that it is set to run a major nuclear weapon exercise in the coming weeks as a caution to NATO and deter it from intervening in the event of Putin invading Ukraine. To add, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO General Secretary, said that Russia has already deployed thousands of troops including Spetsnaz Special forces, along with Iskander missiles that can be tipped with nukes, fighter jets and the S-400 anti-aircraft system. NATO has also warned that Russia is massing nuclear-capable missiles along with 30,000 troops in Belarus.
Furthermore, some analysts believe Moscow could move on Ukraine to claim a quick, decisive victory and increase its power in future talks about NATO’s expansion and spheres of influence. However, some contrast in opinion and claim that NATO allies, especially the USA, are reluctant to expand their military footprints in the region and further jeopardize their relationship with Moscow.
Afterwards, China sided the Russia in opposing further expansion by NATO and both called on NATO to abandon its ideological approach of the Cold War.
After understanding entire situation, one can come to know and can simply answer the question of seriousness of the USA and NATO to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that they are containing Russia more than assisting Ukraine to expand their military foothold, because the USA and Russia are too old antagonists, who toil to contain each other or damage each other indirectly or directly, if we further go through the suggested sanctions by the USA and NATO, if Russia invades, as they claim, which include hitting Russia financially by cutting Russia out of the SWIFT financial system; banning Russian gas pipeline in Europe, which accounts a robust revenue for Russia; and imposing export controls, potentially cutting Moscow off from the high tech that helps warplanes and passenger jets fly and powers smartphones, one can conclude that helping Ukraine can be a secondary purpose of the USA and NATO but to contain Russia is priority, using Ukraine as a tool for garnering its geopolitical goals.
War is not a solution to any conflict; instead it fuels crisis. To resolve the issue, both countries should come to talks so that without any devastation conflict is settled and any tragedy, which is in making, should be prevented.
