The winter-bogged Russia-Ukraine war seems headed for an escalation: Russian attacks on civilian targets like the Dnipro residential building on Jan. Moscow is installing missile defenses on the roofs of its government buildings.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg participates in the Ukraine Contact Group meeting in Germany: “Russia is preparing for new offensives, so it is urgent to intensify support for Ukraine,” he wrote on his Twitter profile. And he celebrated “the significant new package of combat capabilities” announced “for Ukraine’s self-defense” in Ramstein, the German city where representatives of 50 countries meet.
According to a NATO statement, Stoltenberg stated that “like most wars, this one is likely to end at the negotiating table, but what happens in the negotiations is tied to what happens on the battlefield, so we need to deliver more weapons to Ukraine now.” “. In addition, he welcomed the announcements of aid to kyiv by Germany, France, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. He was also pleased that the UK, France and Poland are ready to deliver main battle tanks and light tanks.
During his stay in Ramstein, Stoltenberg met with the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, and with the new German minister of the same portfolio, Boris Pistorius, in the context of strong pressure from both Ukraine and some Western allies for the government to the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, authorize the shipment of the “Leopard2”, an armored vehicle made in Germany.
the russian perspective
On the other side, the Russian and Belarusian air forces continue their joint tactical air exercises from Belarusian territory, amid continuous speculation about a possible new Russian attack from that country against northern Ukraine and kyiv. Belarus and Russia created a joint regional military group last October, made up, according to Minsk, of at least 9,000 Russian soldiers, 170 tanks from the neighboring country and 200 Russian armored cars.
The Kremlin has remained silent about the appearance on social networks of videos and photos allegedly showing artillery systems and Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missiles on the roofs of the Russian Defense Ministry and another building in Moscow. This system is designed, among other things, to protect against drones. The “Moscow Calling” channel published several videos and photographs of an office building in the capital yesterday, in which a crane is seen placing something on the roof and several military trucks next to the machinery.
What Moscow did talk about was the transfer of Russian weapons to Ukraine, after the United States declared that it was trying to persuade Latin American countries to transfer military equipment purchased from Russia to Ukraine. “The legal restrictions on supplies to third countries are very important in this matter, because any supply imposes certain obligations on countries that receive military products,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said. Russia described the meeting of kyiv’s Western allies in Germany as a provocation and dangerous escalation.
The geopolitical background
Ignacio Hutin, is a journalist and author of the books “Ukraine/Donbass: a renewed Cold War” and “Ukraine: chronicle from the front”. In a dialogue with Página/12, he stated that “Ukraine needs a lot of weapons, the greatest amount possible and depends on international contributions. More than 30 States have sent it weapons. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, between January and November 2022 The US is the largest contributor with $18.5 billion in war materiel, followed by the UK with $4.4 billion and Germany with $2.5 billion, but it’s interesting to see how much of that is almost never officially released. donation, loan or sale with long-term financing. Germany generally sends them material with a more defensive function. But in Berlin they fear that Leopard tanks will aim an attack against Russian forces even outside the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine, towards the territory of the Russian Federation”.
According to Ignacio Hutin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz maintains the same logic as last February, before the invasion, when he refused to send weapons on the grounds that this would increase tensions. Today it seems that Germany maintains the same thing: to help the Ukrainian defense, but not to a counterattack that could imply a greater escalation. Germany carries the karma of Nazism and tends to have conflict containment logics, rather than expansion; seeks to get involved as little as possible in conflicts. Ukraine needs to get these tanks in particular because they would be shipped to them from closer, in less time than others from the US.
But Germany was left very blurred in this conflict, Hutin states: “it is no longer the head of the EU that it was with Merkel; it tries to stay relatively on the sidelines in fear of being responsible for an eventual escalation. But he ends up looking bad with everyone: with NATO, with Ukraine, with the EU. It is likely that he will relent at some point, because the pressure is so strong.”