Why Russia considers itself threatened by NATO

By massing 100,000 men on its border with Ukraine, has Vladimir Putin’s Russia decided to strike a blow to stop NATO’s inexorable advance towards its borders for 30 years? The maneuver, which began in November, worries Westerners, and primarily the American military intelligence services, who see it as an imminent invasion attempt.

This brutal pressure of the master of the Kremlin causes a diplomatic frenzy. This week, Russians and Americans will meet in Geneva from Sunday January 9, before discussions on January 12 between the NATO staff, meeting in Brussels, and that of the Russian military forces. The next day, Russians and Westerners will meet again within the framework of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) while the EU Defense Ministers will be at a seminar in Brest.

During this cascade of meetings, Russia expects Westerners to respond to the demands made on December 17. These treaty proposals would prohibit the United States from establishing military bases in all non-NATO member countries of the former USSR and even from “developing bilateral military cooperation” with these states.

Stop NATO enlargement

Even more important in the eyes of Moscow, all members of the Atlantic Alliance would pledge never to expand NATO again and not to carry out any “military activity on the territory of Ukraine and in other countries of the United States. Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia “.

With these requests made publicly, which is unusual in the hushed world of diplomacy, Russia is saying loud and clear that its security is threatened by 30 years of successive enlargements of NATO, the powerful military alliance between Americans and Europeans born of the cold war and the confrontation with the USSR. Moscow makes the eventual accession of Ukraine a red line not to be crossed and demands that the West renounce military support for the Ukrainian forces which, since 2014, have been clashing with pro-Russian separatists in Donbass, in the east. from the country. To date, the conflict has claimed more than 13,000 lives.

For Arnaud Dubien, director of the Franco-Russian observatory in Moscow, “Russia’s objective is to force Westerners, and especially Americans, into the discussion it has never been able to obtain since 1991. Since the collapse of the USSR, the West considered that Russia had no legitimate interest beyond its borders, that it had no voice in European security affairs. Basically, they thought that everything was natural in terms of enlargement, and that Russia would accept. Now it doesn’t work ”.

Challenging the international order born of the end of the Cold War

Indeed, after the fall of the USSR in 1991, Westerners were quick to expand their military influence beyond the Iron Curtain. In 1999, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO. Followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Since then, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and finally the Republic of North Macedonia, in 2020, have also become members of the Alliance and benefit from its protection in the event of a conflict with a third country.

In just over 20 years, Russia has witnessed the entry into NATO of 14 countries which, to varying degrees, have been in its sphere of influence for decades. During these years, Moscow also witnessed, helplessly, the military intervention decided by the West in Kosovo in 1999. “For the Russians, it was a major strategic break. All the more so since it concerned the Serbs, with whom they have a special relationship ”.

In the years following this conflict, Russia gradually emerged from the state of economic and military weakness into which the collapse of the USSR had plunged it and set out to stop what it perceives as unbearable expansionism. First in 2008, with its military intervention in Georgia to support pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, after the military offensive by the pro-Western government in Tbilisi which tried, by force, to resume control of territories that were beyond its control.

Russia does not accept being pushed to the fringes of the continent

Then, in a much more spectacular way in Ukraine, with the annexation, in 2014, of the Crimean peninsula, which follows the victory of the Maidan Revolution, pro-EU, in Kiev and the dismissal of the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. Since this coup, very popular with the Russians, the Kremlin has shown its diplomatic and military strike power well beyond neighboring countries by intervening in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and more recently in Mali.

“The 2014 crisis in Ukraine is indeed a turning point in Russian-Western relations. Many in the West and in Russia believed that in the long run a convergence was inevitable between the enlarging European Union and Russia. This is over. Today, Russia sees itself as an independent pole on the international scene, which is not intended to join an enlarged Western group ”, notes Arnaud Dubien.

Get a new Yalta

Driven by this ambition, Russia wants to obtain, during the meetings which will follow one another this week, a clear commitment from the West concerning the requests for NATO membership formulated by Ukraine, Georgia, and to a lesser extent. by Bosnia and Herzegovina. “The Russians are now demanding that the door be closed”, concludes the researcher.

A position that they will stubbornly hammer home as two countries have been neutral since the end of World War II, Sweden and Finland, said in December that they would seek NATO membership if Russian soldiers invaded Ukraine.

In Ukraine, a dangerous standoff between Westerners and Russians

Beyond the successive enlargements of NATO which upset Moscow, it is above all the fate of Ukraine that will be at stake during diplomatic meetings in the coming days. Indeed, France and Germany are not in favor of Ukraine’s entry into NATO, which could lead to open conflict with Moscow. Washington, despite repeated assurances that it will “respond vigorously” to a Russian invasion, arguably does not want the Europeans to be drawn into a war in Ukraine any more.

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“If the Russians get guarantees on a moderation of bilateral military cooperation between Washington and Kiev, things can calm down. I do not think that the Russians are really waiting for written guarantees on the non-enlargement of NATO, it is impossible but rather a stop to NATO in Ukraine ”

“We must hope that things happen, because the situation can really become dangerous at the end of January otherwise. The Russians have set the bar very high, it is now a question of credibility for them, they cannot lose face. And they cannot keep their soldiers near the Ukrainian border indefinitely ”, argues Arnaud Dubien to France 24.

Russia seeks to divide Americans and Europeans

It remains to be seen whether the West is ready to give up the military support they have been providing to the Kiev government since 2014. And whether they will manage to maintain their unity in the face of Russian demands.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the head of French diplomacy, believes that Russia seeks to divide Europeans and Americans by favoring dialogue with the latter. “The Europeans must be fully involved (in the discussions of next week Editor’s note). European security cannot be discussed without their full involvement,” he told the Senate on January 5.

The Ukrainian question, which will be the main topic of discussions over the next few days, risks putting the unity of the Western camp to the test because “for the Russians, the discussion is between Moscow and Washington, not with the Europeans nor with the ‘small countries’ ”believes the director of the Franco-Russian observatory in Moscow.