New NATO Secretary General on Ukraine

 

This week, NATO's new Secretary General Mark Rutte took office and on the same day he held a press conference, which of course focused a lot on Ukraine; see the full text of this press conference on NATO's official website.

Below I would like to draw your attention to some of Mr. Rutte's statements.

Supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do… Because an independent and democratic Ukraine is vital for peace and stability in Europe.

After the “democratic revolution” in February 2014, Ukraine – in my opinion – is in no way an independent country.

For example, Joe Biden openly bragged in an interview with Voice of America that he had forced the post-Maidan Ukrainian government to fire Ukraine's Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokhin; see in this regard my article Is present Ukraine an independent country?

Can a country be called an independent one if a foreign politician removes the country's Prosecutor-General? And there were no such facts in Ukraine before their “revolution”.

As for democracy in Ukraine after the “democratic revolution” of February 2014, it can be said that in many respects the situation has become much worse than it was before the “revolution”; see in this regard my article What kind of country is modern Ukraine?

• In Ukraine, the rights of national minorities have been significantly curtailed – before the “revolution” these minorities had much more rights.
• In this country, freedom of opposition media is now being suppressed - something that has never happened before.
• Nazi insignia are now freely used in the Ukrainian army– something no one could have imagined before.

And so on. 

Well, clearly, Ukraine is fighting this war of self-defence, and as you know, I'm absolutely impressed by what Ukraine is doing.

For me personally, it is not clear at all that “Ukraine is fighting a war of self-defence.”

After the coup d'état had taken place in Ukraine in February 2014, the Crimea became part of the Russian Federation following a referendum.

But in 2020, threats of preparing military measures for a “reintegration of Crimea into Ukraine” were published on the official website of the President of Ukraine.

Since these threats were accompanied by large-scale deliveries of Western weapons to Ukraine, the Russian government decided in February 2022 to launch a military operation in Ukraine; see in this regard my article Has the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine been provoked?

Recent estimates I am getting and probably you also, Russian losses run at about...

Western politicians, who care very much about Ukraine, are for some reason very interested in Russian losses. But at his press conference, Mr. Rutte did not name the number of Ukrainian losses. Are Ukrainian losses really not important to Mr. Rutte?

… if Russia would win in Ukraine, if Putin would get what he wants … that it means that he would gain one quarter of his territory and one quarter of his population extra so this is the direct defence impact it would have.

This is a complete nonsense.

Russia does not aim to occupy Ukraine, since such an occupation is physically impossible. For such an occupation, it would be necessary to keep a huge army in Ukraine. That is, in this case, no increase in population would be achieved. On the contrary, it would be necessary to send a large number of Russian citizens to Ukraine as soldiers.

The goals of the Russian military operation were clearly stated – the cessation of hostilities in Donbass, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.

… Putin's nuclear rhetoric is reckless and irresponsible... He wants us also to discuss his nuclear arsenal. And I think we shouldn't.

It is completely unclear why the new NATO Secretary General decided not to discuss V. Putin’s statement that an aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, can be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation.

This was a serious statement about a possible change in Russia's nuclear doctrine, and Mr. Rutte's current status should have prompted him to take such a possible change very seriously.