Cuban crisis of 1962 and the present Ukrainian crisis

 

Since there is a misunderstanding in the West about the goals of Russia's Special Military Operation in Ukraine, I would like to explain these goals by using the example of the Cuban Crisis of 1962.

In 1959, Fulgencio Batista, the pro-American leader of Cuba, was overthrown as a result of a revolution led by Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro began to pursue an anti-American policy and - in particular - demanded that the territory, where the US military base Guantanamo is located, be returned to Cuba. The United States refused to give this territory back and repeatedly tried to eliminate F. Castro.

In 2017, documents were declassified that showed a plan of an American invasion of Cuba in 1962; see the quote from USA Today below:
By August, the administration had a more detailed invasion plan. The Aug. 8, 1962, plan included using 71,000 soldiers and 35,000 Marines on the ground in Cuba and another 29,000 soldiers in support positions. Major units involved would include two Army airborne divisions, an infantry brigade, an armored combat command, a naval amphibious attack force and 17 Air Force tactical fighter squadrons and 53 troop carrier or transport squadrons.

The Cuban authorities foresaw the possibility of a US military invasion, therefore the Soviet Union, by agreement with the Cuban government, deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

In October 1962, a US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft discovered these missiles in Cuba and the US government demanded that the USSR remove these missiles, although their deployment in Cuba did not violate any international norms.

But the US argumentation was the following: We don’t want Soviet missiles to be deployed right next door to us.

After some dramatic negotiations, the USSR agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba.

The situation in Ukraine has some similarities with the Cuban Crisis of 1962.

Ukraine demands that Russia return the Crimean Peninsula, which was a part of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic until 1954, and from 1954 to 1991 it was a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and then a part of independent Ukraine.

At the same time as demanding the return of the Crimea, the Ukrainian authorities increased military cooperation with NATO, explaining this by the need to protect Ukraine from an allegedly planned Russian invasion.

In this regard, Russian President V. Putin declared in October 2021:
… formal membership (of Ukraine) in NATO may not take place, but military development of the territory is already underway, and this really poses a threat to the Russian Federation, we are aware of this.
see the official website of the President of Russia.

But while in 1962 the negotiations led to a resolution of the conflict, at the end of January 2022 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that:
So NATO respects a country or a nation when they decide to apply for NATO membership, as for instance, Ukraine...
So, this is about respecting the right for self-determination.
see the official NATO website.

Therefore, it was precisely the unwillingness of Western countries to take into account Russia’s concerns about its security that, in my opinion, provoked the further development of the Ukrainian crisis and led to the start of the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine in February 2022.