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Are the Leopards bringing the West closer to a war with Russia? Experts say no

2023-01-29T10:59:38.604Z


International law supports the delivery of arms to Ukraine and the training of its military. The red line that would turn allies into participants is to send troops


Javelin anti-tank missiles, 155mm howitzers, Himars rocket launchers, Patriot anti-aircraft systems, light tanks, Challenger, Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.

The rise and power of Western military aid to Ukraine to defend against Russian invasion has heated debate over the degree of involvement of allied countries in the war, and whether a potential direct conflict is near.

Angered by the invasion to strip Ukraine of its sovereignty, the Kremlin has raised the tone of its accusations of the Atlantic Alliance, insisting that the latest shipments imply that NATO is at war with Russia in Ukraine, through the troops of kyiv armed with allied military material;

a " proxy

war"

[through mediation]”.

The Kremlin's rhetoric is followed by some European sectors, but international law protects countries that support Ukraine with weapons to defend itself.

And with that they do not consider themselves part of the conflict.

The red line is to put military boots on the ground.

A perspective that the allied countries are preparing to move away.

This week, after Germany and the United States announced the shipment of powerful and modern tanks to Ukraine as part of a large joint allied effort, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, considered one of

Russian President Vladimir Putin's

submarines

, in the EU and NATO, charged against the new support.

“If you send weapons and finance the year-round budget of one of the parties to the conflict and consider sending more and more modern weapons, then you can say what you want, you are part of the war,” Orbán said.

“It started when the Germans said they were willing to send helmets.

Now we are on battle tanks and they are already talking about airplanes, ”he remarked.

Russia has boiled these days with a related argument, following some statements by the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, manipulated by the Putin government to defend that Berlin and NATO are belligerent parties in the war.

“We are fighting a war against Russia, and not with each other,” said the minister at the Council of Europe, in English.

Moscow asked for clarification and the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajárova, assured on her Telegram channel that the statements prove that the West is waging "a premeditated war against Russia."

The German government settled the issue on Friday, during the ordinary press conference, reports

Elena G. Sevillano

: “Neither NATO nor Germany are part of the war.

Chancellor [Olaf Scholz] has underlined this over and over again.

We support Ukraine, but we are not part of the war," said a spokeswoman, who explained that the phrase was said in the context of a debate on how the European Union, the G-7 and NATO stand together against "the brutal war of aggression that Russia is waging in Ukraine”.

legitimate defense

The Kremlin has long claimed that what is happening in Ukraine is a “

proxy

war ” between Russia and the West, between Moscow and NATO.

Geraint Hughes, Professor of Military and Diplomatic History at King's College London, has weighed in on the matter in a robust essay and concludes that, despite Russian propaganda, that argument is not true.

And it is not, he details, because there is friction between Ukraine and its allies over requests for weapons, because Western support would be of little use if the Ukrainians were not ready and willing to fight and have given a response since the start of the invasion. indigenous, and finally because Ukraine is a sovereign and independent State recognized by the international community that has the right to self-defense.

Kristi Raik, deputy director of the International Center for Defense Studies, dismisses the concept of "

proxy

warfare " in this case.

“Somehow diminishes the autonomy of Ukraine.

And this war is happening because Ukraine is defending its independence, they are determined to do so.

And that is why the West supports them in this war launched by Russia, ”she points out.

At the end of 2021, Russia wanted to rewind time and threatened NATO and the United States if they did not cease all military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Moscow wanted to return to the Cold War world order.

A couple of months later, to justify his invasion, the Russian president assured that the prospect of Ukraine joining the Atlantic Alliance —Kiev received the letter of invitation to do so in 2008 and since then no progress has been made on it and before the The invasion had no prospects for it to advance—it was a threat and should thus “demilitarize” the country and also “denazify” it—Ukraine has a Jewish prime minister and president.

Since then, the Kremlin has endeavored to sell at home and through its propaganda apparatus that this is, in fact, a war against NATO.

In order to mobilize the population,

The Atlantic Alliance has stressed from the beginning of the Russian invasion that it is not part of the conflict.

And it has refused requests by the government of President Volodimir Zelensky to establish a no-fly zone to avoid Russian bombing, arguing that this would bring Alliance forces into direct conflict with Russia.

Although NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has called on allied countries to hold up Ukraine and increase their support, it is the military and financial assistance of its members that has become the lifeline of Ukraine's war effort. .

And they assist the country that has been attacked by virtue of Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which allows for individual and collective self-defense.

It is very different to send weapons and provide assistance from outside the country than to have a military presence inside, says Jamie Shea, professor of Strategy and Security at the University of Exeter and a former senior NATO official.

“There are rights inherent in collective self-defense, therefore assistance through a country that legitimately defends itself,” he says.

“Allies can supply weapons, organize training.

As long as they do not operate systems for the Ukrainians and as long as they are not really present with the boots on the ground, inside the country, the allied countries are not belligerents and cannot be considered as co-belligerents”, assures the defense expert.

Military volunteers or contractors who have come to Ukraine to fight in one of its international brigades are not considered direct involvement, Shea says,

A Ukrainian soldier with a Himars rocket launcher, last July in the Donbas region. Anastasia Vlasova (The Washington Post via Getty Im)

Some allies have feared, however, that certain transfers of military hardware will incite Russia to escalate the war.

This is the case of Olaf Scholz with the German-made Leopard 2 tanks, which some countries had offered to kyiv but which they could not send without the green light from Berlin for re-export, as established in the defense contracts.

Germany has moved in a complex balance throughout the war: older generations still remember its tanks rampaging through Eastern Europe during World War II and there is a certain shadow of guilt, a significant anti-militarism after two world wars and also for its economic and trade ties with Russia.

After great pressure and only after Washington agreed to send its own Abrams tanks to Ukraine as well, Germany decided not only to allow other countries to send Leopard 2s, but to send a batch of its own in a coalition international shipping effort aimed at to create a better logistical and support structure, but also to plug the cracks that had begun to become visible in the NATO unit and to break a mental scheme that, until then, had marked heavy tanks as a clear red line.

“We always have to make it clear in everything we do that we are doing what is necessary and what is possible to support Ukraine,” Scholz said.

"But at the same time we are preventing the war from becoming a war between Russia and NATO," he noted.

fear of escalation

Fear of military escalation has for some time held back the shipment of heavy offensive military hardware to Ukraine, but of late, intelligence reports have argued that escalation is less likely, though never ruled out.

And that has also played a role in the geostrategic tabletop discussion of military aid.

A strategic board in which there are other variables, such as the present and future role of Iran (which already supplies bomb drones and could also give the Kremlin missiles) in the conflict and North Korea, taking note of the patterns of the war, aim allied sources.

The debate, the strategic, legal and ethical discussion of helping an invaded country is not new at all.

The United States found itself in the dilemma of sustaining arms and troop shipments to the United Kingdom during World War II, until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor triggered its involvement.

For Kristi Reik, the current situation reminds her rather of the Winter War of 1939, when the Soviet Union attacked Finland in a war of aggression.

Jamie Shea also draws an interesting comparison to the 1930s, when France and the UK in the League of Nations adopted a policy of non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War, which meant sending no arms and certainly no troops.

“This time it is different, in the sense that non-intervention is defined as being able to transfer weapons, as long as they are fully operated by Ukrainian troops,” he notes.

It is not ruled out that heavy tanks are not the last taboo to break.

The Zelensky government is now demanding fighter jets.

Although that debate has not yet started formally among the allies, who are now designing the structure to make the Leopard 2 and Abrams effective.

NATO and different intelligence sources have warned that Russia is planning a new offensive for spring.

Or even before.

And that has helped unlock the decision to send tanks.

"We are going to see a much more intense war," says military analyst Jérôme Pellistrandi, who believes that the conflict is very likely to continue until next year.

Ukraine is also planning a counter-offensive to try to gain ground,

Meanwhile, Russia has raised its tone and has stated that the decision to send tanks is "highly dangerous" and "brings the conflict to a new level of confrontation."

Also that the West is "engaged in permanent escalation."

In response, US President Joe Biden repeated an argument that Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin insistently throws at Moscow: “If Russian troops go back to Russia, where they belong, this war would end today.”

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-29

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