This week, Newsweek quoted a senior Kremlin official as warning that Russia would not end the war in Ukraine until NATO withdrew its troops from the Baltic states and the so-called Eastern Bloc.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov demanded that NATO withdraw its troops from the Baltic region. Russia has long considered the Baltic states to be very close and within its sphere of influence, including its territory in the Kaliningrad region.
“The American side needs practical steps aimed at eliminating the root causes of the fundamental contradictions between us in the security sphere,” he initially told the TASS news agency.
“Foremost among these reasons is NATO enlargement,” he stressed. “Without solving this, for us, most fundamental and most pressing problem, resolving the current conflict in the Euro-Atlantic area is simply impossible.”
NATO’s “eastern wing” is approaching the beginning of the war in Ukraine – troops have been growing since then…
“Given the nature and origin of the Ukrainian crisis, which was provoked by the previous US authorities and the West as a whole, this conflict naturally serves as, well, if you will, a touchstone, a test, which tests the seriousness of Washington’s intentions to improve our relations,” he said.
Ryabkov said Moscow’s position has always been that the Western military alliance “should not deploy strike weapons close to Russia’s border.”
“In any case, reducing NATO’s Eastern European contingent would likely increase the security of the entire continent,” he concluded.
This broader ultimatum was actually issued just before the full-scale invasion, but it was not heeded. In fact, countries such as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have only become harsher and more vocal in their anti-Moscow rhetoric, and have even filed a lawsuit against the Russian Orthodox Church in the Baltics.
German intelligence issued a highly provocative and sensational warning…
Newsweek has at the same time commented that “NATO has a strong military presence on its eastern flank in Europe, with multinational battle groups and brigades stationed in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.”
* * *
Michael Every of Rabobank has commented on this renewed demand from the Kremlin…
In geopolitics, Russia warned that it would not end the war in Ukraine until NATO withdrew its troops from the Baltic states. Whatever asset you are looking at, take a step back and think about this for a moment.
Is this a bluff – how do you know? Does this mean the EU is giving these countries back under Russian influence – and where after that? This is the end of the EU as we know it, not to mention the version that blithely declares that it wants to expand into Moldova, next to Russia’s client state, and into Georgia, next to Russia itself.
Or does it point to the ongoing hostility between the EU and Russia – the latter with not an “Italy-sized economy” but a $7 trillion war economy and $7 trillion in purchasing power parity, and the world’s vast physical resources – which has profound consequences for both sides socio-politically, economically and financially.
