Broadway

Complete News World

The United States and NATO turn Ukraine into a "powder keg"

The United States and Russia will negotiate the conflict in Ukraine on January 10

In the West, the deployment of Russian forces not far from Ukraine has been causing great concern for weeks. Tens of thousands of soldiers are said to have gathered there. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his readiness to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict last week, but at the same time demanded security guarantees for Russia. This included ending NATO’s eastward expansion, and with it ceding NATO membership to Ukraine.

Moscow hopes that the Geneva meeting will lead to negotiations on a binding security agreement, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia’s state agency TASS. But Washington stresses that decisions will not be taken at the head of allies, including Kiev.

“There will be areas in which we can make progress and areas in which we will not agree,” a statement from the White House National Security Council said. In Moscow, Ryabkov said Russia would not allow itself to be dictated by an agenda. Meanwhile, he stressed that Russia would not accept NATO expansion again in the East. We will not only hinder it, we will put an end to it.”

Even after the Geneva meeting, diplomatic efforts to de-escalate will accelerate significantly in January. NATO plans to hold talks with Russia on January 12, but Moscow has yet to confirm them. According to the US government, there will also be a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council (OSCE) on January 13.

Today’s Top Jobs

Find the best jobs now and
You are notified by e-mail.

The federal government is also trying to hold talks with Russia, Ukraine and France in the so-called Normandy format, Barbock told dpa. But she also emphasized that “a further military escalation on the Ukrainian border and above all a violation of international law and violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty will have enormous political and economic consequences for Russia.” There is a “long list” of possible actions.

Burbock did not mention the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in this context. But she stressed that the controversial project played a “geostrategic role”. Therefore, the old federal government of the Union and the SPD has already recognized that the gas pipeline will also raise safety issues.

The double line under the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany has been completed, but the operating license from the Federal Network Agency is still lost. Its president, Jochen Homann, said recently that there will be no decisions on this in the first half of the year. After the body’s decision, the review was not decided upon by the European Union Commission.

Russia is now urging a quick decision. “No one needs artificial delays in the pipeline operation,” said the Russian ambassador to Germany, Sergei Nchaggio, of the German news agency dpa. Russia is ready to deliver gas immediately through the two pipelines. The new federal government, made up of the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party, is expected to deal with the project “in a pragmatic and consumer-friendly manner”.

The United States rejects the pipeline because it fears Europe will be too dependent on Russian energy supplies. The Greens also have fundamental concerns about the project. Nechaev sees it calmly: “I hear an assessment from the new federal government that it is a private sector project that should not be linked to politics,” he said, referring to a statement by Federal Chancellor Olaf Schultz. The SPD politician described the approval process as “completely apolitical” and that the pipeline was a “private sector project”.

It is clear that the appointed president of the Munich Security Conference, Christoph Heusgen, sees Nord Stream 2 as a potential sanctions tool against Russia. The former German ambassador to the United Nations told the German Liberation Network (Tuesday) that Putin sees the United States and Europe weakened by the change of government and the shameful end of the Afghanistan mission and is looking for a reason to invade Ukraine. In this case, sanctions should include Nord Stream 2 and the exclusion of Russia from the international SWIFT payment system.

“Putin will interpret the soft reaction as weakness and will only stimulate his desire to expand,” said Heusgen, who headed the chancellery’s foreign affairs department for many years. Putin strives to “restore a Russian empire reminiscent of the Soviet Union.”

The Defense Ministry in Moscow warned Western military attaches of the danger of armed conflict on Monday. “Recently, the alliance has adopted the practice of direct provocation, which poses a great risk of escalating into an armed confrontation,” said Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin.