by Konstantinos Kolokotronis.
While fears of Russian invasion have been building up in intensity with Russia having amassed reportedly about 100,00 troops, supported by artillery and armour, at its borders with Ukraine as well as north of Kyiv in neighbouring Belarus, the US in coordination with its European NATO allies and partners have stepped up their efforts and doubled down on their declared commitment to stand by Ukraine in the face of what Washington views as “Russian aggression”. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price reiterated on Monday’s briefing (January 24) that “in the event of Russian aggression against Ukraine, there will be a response. It will be swift; it will be severe. In the event of an incursion, it will be unprecedented in terms of the steps we are prepared to take”. Following this remark, Mr Price added in response to a question from the press that “the President has been very clear about the consequences that would befall the Russian Federation if Russia were to move forward with additional aggression against Ukraine. We’ve spoken of the economic and financial consequences that Russia would endure that would in many ways be unprecedented, measures that we very pointedly opted not to take in the aftermath of 2014. We have spoken of the additional levels of defensive security assistance that we would be prepared to provide to our Ukrainian partners, above and beyond the $650 million that we have provided to Kyiv within last year alone. That is more security assistance than has ever been provided in a single year to our partners in Ukraine.” Indeed, just days prior, a shipment of 90 tons of “lethal aid”, approved by President Biden in late December, landed in Kyiv, in the aftermath of Secretary’s Blinken’s visit in the capital and diplomatic face-off with his Russia counterpart, Sergey Lavrov in Switzerland. While however, the official stance of the US State Department highlighted a united and harsh response to any Russian renewed conventional offensive against Ukraine, beyond the scope of its continuous practice of hybrid warfare, President Biden’s ambiguous remark at a press conference on Wednesday (19th January) cast doubts at NATO’s members’ potential response to a Russian “incursion” and underlined all-well-known, albeit seldomly expressed reservations, on what exactly the role of major European partners, such as Germany and France, would be if such a development was to materialise.
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"I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do."
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The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, soon after offered an explanation on the President remark’s before he stepped up himself to reinstate that "If any — any — assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion," adding that it would result in a "severe and coordinated economic response".
It remains, however, unclear whether Germany’s rejection of Ukrainian requests for lethal military aid last week, will undermine what the American President has described as a “unified response”. It becomes evident that if a potential Russian offensive is to be countered solely by Ukraine’s own defensive capabilities, then the supply of lethal and game-changing military aid should be the number one priority. Germany’s staunch rejection in providing much-needed arms to Ukraine and France’s suggestion of rapprochement with Russia does suggest the lack of a unified Western response to the security dilemma that has appeared in Eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, even though the US has downplayed publicly on multiple occasions the deployment of US troops in Ukraine in response to the Russian military build-up, an announcement was made on the 24th of January concerning about 8,500 US troops on high alert and ready for deployment in Eastern Europe. This marks the first time that the US has indicated that any potential Russian aggression will be met with force. If US forces and NATO are to be activated to assist Ukraine, about 40,000 NATO troops would find themselves heading in the region.
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“The US troops would be attached to a NATO Response Force, or NRF, which would total about 40,000 troops and would deploy to the region if Russian forces invade Ukraine.” Dustin Jones, Coffee or Die Magazine.
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Sources:
https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-january-24-2022/
https://coffeeordie.com/us-troops-ukraine-alert/
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/22/1075064514/ukraine-lethal-aid-us-russia
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074466148/biden-russia-ukraine-minor-incursion
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