The US president, Joe Biden, this Wednesday guaranteed his counterparts on the eastern flank of NATO their safety in the face of a hypothetical aggression from Russia. “Article V is a sacred commitment for the United States. The attack on one of us is an attack on the whole,” Biden said at a meeting that included the absence of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Hungary, a member along with Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania of the so-called Bucharest Nine, a group formed after the annexation of Crimea by Russia, was represented by the president, Katalin Novák. The meeting was joined by the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, and the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, although this country is not a member of the Alliance. Its inclusion, however, carries great symbolism, as Moldova borders Ukraine and has a sizeable Russian population. Russian troops are present in the breakaway Moldovan territory of Transnistria.
“As part of NATO’s eastern flank, you are on the front lines of our collective defense. You know better than anyone what is at stake in this conflict, not only for Ukraine, but for the freedom of democracies throughout Europe and around in the world,” said Biden, who pledged to protect countries on the Eastern flank. They were guarantees that did not translate, at least not publicly, into a greater US presence on that flank, as Poland had requested, but his constant references to collective security and his determination to “defend every inch of our territory” were a warning. who most certainly reached Moscow.
Regarding Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend Russia’s obligations under the START III or New START nuclear disarmament treaty, Biden only told an open microphone that it was a “big mistake.”
Putin’s announcement fuels new fears, because although the war in Ukraine remains within the recognized borders of that country, the suspension of the only nuclear disarmament treaty in force between Moscow and the United States is not good news for the world. START limits the number of nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can have deployed to 1,550. Technically, the agreement is extended until February 2026, but Putin announced on Tuesday that he would put it on hold until further notice, something that has already been endorsed by both houses of the Russian Parliament. A hypothetical rupture of the New START would imply that the arsenals of the two largest the world’s nuclear powers would have no limitations for the first time since the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War.
Signed in 2010 by then-US and Russian presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, New START also restricts the number of launch vehicles and systems that Washington and Moscow can have deployed or in reserve, but its cornerstone is the verification regime. that the treaty establishes to ensure that these limits are met.
Specifically, both the United States and Russia can carry out up to 18 inspections a year of each other’s nuclear arsenals with little time for the receiving country to prepare: technicians give 32-hour notice before arriving and then choose the site they want to examine. , which must be respected by the receiving authorities.
A month ago, the United States accused Russia of breaching the treaty by not allowing US technicians to carry out inspections on Russian territory.
“We cannot allow Russia to continue chipping away at European security,” Stoltenberg declared at the start of the meeting. We have seen the Russian pattern of aggression for many years; Georgia in 2008, Crimea and Donbas in 2014. We must break the cycle of Russian aggression,” he said. And he regretted that, a year after the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian president “is not preparing for peace, but rather for more war.”
“We must maintain and increase our support for Ukraine. We must give Ukraine what it needs to prevail. We don’t know when this war will end, but when it does we must make sure that history does not repeat itself,” Stoltenberg said bluntly.
In this sense, the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, said that the leaders of the eastern flank of NATO “have a duty to remain firm in the defense of peace” in their countries and advocated continuing to support Ukraine for as long as possible. necessary for him to “win the war”.
Allied support for Ukraine is enormous, despite the limits imposed to prevent NATO from becoming a direct part of the conflict. On the ground, however, the war seems stagnant, waiting for the spring offensive that the parties predict. According to the head of the German intelligence services (BND), Bruno Kahl, Russia, despite the defeats suffered, still has the capacity to mobilize a million troops.
German Brigadier General Christian Freuding added in this sense that the defensive struggle of the Ukrainians is in a difficult phase. The head of the Ukrainian Special Staff of the German Defense Ministry noted a recognizable learning ability on the part of the Ukrainians, but “we also know that the Ukrainians can no longer refresh their units with volunteers alone, but now deliberately recruit reservists from various graduations; this indicates that they are currently under pressure,” Freuding said.
The meeting with the Bucharest Nine has brought to an end Biden’s European visit, which began with a surprise stop in Kiev, and was aimed at highlighting the support of the world’s most powerful country for Ukraine in a year-long war.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
