President Putin has made it clear that he wants immediate talks to secure clear legal agreements that Nato will not expand eastwards. He has further alleged that Russian-speaking people in Ukraine continue to face prejudices and are not safe.

Moscow is looking to prevent Ukraine joining NATO or the EU, not in the near future, but in general, for geopolitical, as long as cultural and historical reasons. Many Russians consider Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians to be of one ethnicity (Putin’s One Russia), while the country, whenever called upon defending its ground, it did after invasions from Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in the beginning of December in Stockholm, Sweden, but frankly speaking, the situation only appears to deteriorate day by day.

“It’s now on Russia to deescalate the current tensions by reversing the recent troop buildup, returning forces to normal peacetime positions, and refraining from further intimidation and attempts to destabilize Ukraine,” Blinken said at a press conference at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will lead bilateral security discussions in Geneva on January 10, 2022, regarding the Ukrainian situation. Russia has alarmed Western countries in the last two months by amassing tens of thousands of troops near its border with Ukraine. Moscow denies any plans to attack Ukraine and claims the right to move its troops as it sees fit on its own territory.

Nuclear Threat?

Putin understands that while the concepts of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity are essential to the West, they pale in comparison to the urgency of avoiding nuclear war.

Moscow timed its announcement of the potential of reintroducing nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles to Europe to dissuade those who support a rules-based international order.

Kiev’s diplomats have also begun commenting on Ukraine’s past decision to hand up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, which it inherited from the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s.

It had 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles with 1,240 nuclear warheads, 44 strategic bombers with over 700 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, and over 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

As a result and with US diplomatic support, Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1994 as a non-nuclear weapon state, transferring all nuclear weapons to Russia and dismantling all strategic delivery vehicles.

The last nuclear warhead had departed Ukraine by mid-1996, and the last missile silo had been demolished by the end of 2001.

Because of the US’s multibillion-dollar support, Ukraine’s boldness toward Russia is likewise justified. The US has increased its military assistance, including lethal defensive weapons like Javelin anti-tank rockets.NATO and its European Union allies have also aided Ukraine’s military training and reform.

To conclude, if Ukraine does not join NATO, the country may explore acquiring nuclear weapons. That would create a total chaos in the region, and probably provoke a Russian attack, even before the nuclears reach Kiev.

Current border situation

Moscow is also accusing Kiev that is not proceeding with its commitments towards the Minsk agreement, in terms of lowering the political tenses and securing the safety of the russian speaking eastern populations of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up his rhetoric in response to the crisis in Ukraine, claiming that the conflict in the country’s east resembles genocide.

Tensions between Ukraine and Russia are at an all-time high, with rumors of a Russian force build-up near Russia’s Ukrainian border rising concerns about Moscow’s intentions.Russia is reportedly increasing the number of combatants along its border with Ukraine, according to the US and NATO, despite the Kremlin’s repeated denials that it intends to invade Ukraine and views NATO assistance for the country as a threat on Russia’s western frontier.

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a two-hour video call to try to defuse a growing crisis over Russian military deployments near Ukraine’s borders, where the Kremlin is thought to have gathered 100,000 troops.

Ukraine has communicated in international fora that Russia that it is attempting to destabilize the country in advance of any possible regional conflict. In recent weeks, NATO members have frequently warned Russia against taking any more military actions against Ukraine.

Currently, separatists backed by Russia have been in control, since 2014, of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, commonly known as Donbas region. Although Russia denies it, Russian para-military forces are present in the south-east peripheries, which Ukraine refers to as “temporarily occupied areas”.