Last week, US President Joe Biden said during a meeting with the leaders of a number of European Union and NATO member states that Russia’s attack on Ukraine could begin on February 16, that is, today. The news was reported by a number of Western media outlets. Some of the world’s population living on the Internet these days is engaged in “doomsday scrolling,” that is, wandering through websites and social networks, searching for news about the end of the world. It’s the way of life of millions of people, fear on the one hand and malice on the other. This mixture is the best-selling news product today.
The possible invasion of Russia has been talked about for several months, and it was mentioned that the attack will take place during or immediately after the Beijing Olympics. It is difficult to say why such a prediction was made. It is not ruled out that there was some primitive parallelism. If they invaded Georgia during the Beijing Olympics in 2008, they should do the same now.
During all this time, between the regular tense talks between Putin, Macron, and Biden, as well as the foreign ministers of those countries, the parties made harsh statements, constantly raising the stakes. The meaning of the whole dialogue, simplifying a bit, is presented in a rather funny way. Russia hinted that it might invade Ukraine, but the West responded that it would not tolerate it. Russia countered, “Who are you threatening? What are you going to do if we invade?” The West kept threatening, “If you invade, you will see.” Russia responded, “But we are not going to invade.” The West said, “Even better.” Russia countered with, “But what will happen if we invade?” And so on.
It seems to me that Russia has no reason, no excuse, and no special need to take such a step. Although Zelensky is a populist like Saakashvili, unlike the former president of Georgia, he is not adventurous. It is also not credible that if an American official promises to support him in case of any developments, the President of Ukraine will not be very excited. Russia is not what it was in 2008 or even 2014. The political and economic cost of an open attack on another state will be extremely high. Moreover, I think Russia will not be able to prevent Ukraine’s membership in NATO; it has no serious leverage to oppose it.
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…In this sense, the conversation of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg with Ilham Aliyev was interesting. According to the NATO leader, they had a good telephone conversation. “We discussed regional security and the concentration of Russian forces near the borders of Ukraine and in the territory of that country,” said the NATO Secretary General. He also thanked Aliyev for increasing gas supplies to Europe.
Aram Abrahamyan
