While the sprint is underway to get in a hurry (7-10 days) to a first draft on the security guarantees to be offered Ukraine, the leaders of Staff of NATO gathered in videoconference to listen to an “update” of the new supreme commander in Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, and essentially “bless” the effort made by the coalition of the willing.
In fact, Paris and London lead (now assisted by Washington), with NATO to act as a connection, given the implications for European security. Moscow perceived the change of pace and does not skimp the barrier fire: “Discussing guarantees without us is a road that does not bring anywhere”. The allied military leaders – in what the president of the military committee Giuseppe Cavo Dragone described as a “excellent and Franca” discussion – have therefore expressed their “support” to the willing as well as to the peace process triggered by Donald Trump.
A NATO official specified that the alliance is not “directly involved” in the elaboration of the military plans – Trump himself wants to keep it separate as much as possible from the Ukrainian dossier – but it has also highlighted how cooperation can only be “congenital”. The reason is soon said. Any decision in the end is taken by the capital, it must be made that any forces located – are boots on the ground or use of other effective – not minus the effectiveness of the allied defensive plans. Trivially, if someone sent men or means to Ukraine, at the same time he will have to explain to General Grynkewich how he intends to “get the hole”.
And this makes it clear how complex the operation is, especially for countries that count armed forces already in the bone. Moscow, for its part, bombs in advance. “We cannot accept – said Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov – which now proposes to resolve the security, collective safety issues without Russia. It won’t work. And I am sure that in the West, especially in the United States, they perfectly understand that it is a utopia, a road to nothing ».
Lavrov then dusted off the hypothesis of 2022, wrecked together with the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations hosted by Turkey, according to which to guarantee the safety of Ukraine should be “permanent members of the UN Security Council”, namely Russia and China, in addition to the USA, France and Great Britain, according to him also accepted at the time also by the Ukrainian delegation.
Too bad that the Kremlin had subsequently claimed a right of veto on each intervention, actually making the mechanism useless. Having said that, NATO make it clear that the scenarios on the post -truce remain “open”, precisely since it is not clear at the moment how we want to treat Moscow, if it will have a say on the security guarantees or will be considered a adverse part, to which to impose an already closed plan. Militarily speaking, it is the difference between the sun and the moon. Among the corridors of the European institutions, however, it is emphasized that the coalition will elaborate in full autonomy the scheme of the guarantees, in part to increase the pressure on Vladimir Putin and convince him to seriously negotiate the end of the war.
The first step, in this sense, is the bilateral of the Tsar with Volodymyr Zelensky, and then includes Trump in a second summit. For Putin it is a delicate boas tour because, if you subtract, the Europeans will go into pressing on the US President, claiming that it was only a bluff. Lavrov knows it perfectly and tries to prepare the field.
“So far – he remarked – we have witnessed a rather aggressive escalation from the Europeans, to rather clumsy and in general attempts, to change the position of the Trump Administration and personally of the US President, as we observed during the European escort in Zelensky in Washington”. “In any case – he concluded – we are ready for any format but when it is a vertex it is necessary to prepare it in all. the previous phases ».