Former president Donald Trump offered his most explicit statement that he threatened not to defend NATO allies from attacks by Russia.
Appearing at an event held by the Heritage Foundation in Florida, Trump claimed that he told fellow NATO leaders that he might not abide by NATO’s Article 5 collective-defense clause if those countries didn’t pay more for the alliance. During Trump administration, Baltic states and NATO allies were not confident enough about NATO and its unity about article 5. Baltic states were spooked by Trump’s demand to get 2% financial commitment from NATO members.
NATO was completely disarray during the Trump administration. President Biden sought to bolster the countries along NATO’s eastern flank Wednesday as he concluded a momentous three-day trip to Ukraine and Poland, pledging full support if Russia begins targeting their countries.
Hours before he was scheduled to leave for Washington, Biden reiterated that if Russia attacked any of those Eastern European nations, the United States will invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, meaning that each member of the alliance would respond as if its territory had been attacked.
“It’s absolutely clear: Article 5 is a sacred commitment the United States has made,” the president said before joining a closed-door meeting with leaders of what are known as the Bucharest Nine nations. “We will defend every inch of NATO. Every inch of NATO.”
Putin’s invasion prompted NATO countries to get closer
Vladimir Putin is leading Russia to defeat and humiliation in Ukraine, according to one of Moscow’s most respected military figures, who also blames the President for uniting the West with his disastrous invasion. Retired army colonel-general Leonid Ivashov (pictured) had called for the president’s resignation a year ago before the war started over a ‘criminal’ policy in ‘provoking’ an ‘artificial’ conflict, foreseeing it would trigger disaster. Now he says the carnage across the border is worse than he imagined. Ivashov, chairman of the independent All-Russian Officers’ Assembly and a former top aide to a famous Soviet defense minister, lambasted Putin, declaring: ‘We did not expect such a series of mistakes, wrong actions during this military operation. What happened in the end? Basically what we expected, but much worse,’ said the general, a key figure in the Soviet-era Red Army and later the Russian military, in an interview with Republic independent media.’
He continued: ‘At the operational-tactical level, we did not think that within a year we would not be able to liberate the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. We did not think that there would be such heavy losses, although I then said there would be tens of thousands of dead on both sides. But everything turned out to be much worse.’ Some estimates say the losses on both sides are now over 200,000, and rising fast. Russia alone is estimated to have lost as many as 180,000 since February last year. ‘It was not expected that there would be such destruction, in fact, entire small towns and villages were demolished to their foundations,’ Ivashov said. ‘Further, I wrote that we would find ourselves a pariah state, but, frankly, I did not think that we would not have a single ally that has serious influence on the political, economic or military-technical level.’
Ivashov blames Putin for triggering a new alignment between the US and China, and expects this to bear fruit with the pair holding the major sway in the world. ‘Russia in such a picture of the world is not mentioned at all as a political player,’ he said. ‘So now they will create a bipolar world, but without our participation.’ Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine had ‘saved NATO’ with Finland and Sweden due to join, he continued. ‘We have delivered the whole of Europe into the hands of the Americans…’ due to Putin’s ineptness. ‘There was no Collective West before, there were a lot of contradictions there. And today we are creating this Collective West with our own hands.’ Ivashov said Putin blundered by not properly seeking other solutions in Donetsk and Luhansk, before launching his invasion. ‘Did we raise this issue at the UN General Assembly? No! We immediately moved tanks there. Every problem has multiple solutions. And most importantly – do not choose the worst. But we, unfortunately, chose the worst.’ He also scathingly criticized Putin for the use of private armies in the conflict, stressing it leads to confused command structures.
Putin deployed the Wagner Private Military company in Ukraine, which has played a large part in the seven-month-long battles raging around the city of Bakhmut – a major target for Putin’s invading troops. Wagner has claimed to take towns in the region singlehandedly, publicly embarrassing the Russian Armed Forces. ‘As for the [regular] army, there is the problem of destroying professionalism,’ Ivashov said. Russia is paying the price for the Putin era’s demoting of military professions and instead bringing in secret services cronies and even alcohol and furniture experts to key military positions,’ the retired general said. ‘To go to war with such an army is more than a crime,’ he said. He forecast failure if Putin forces through a new mass mobilization, and as a hardliner he berated the dictator for seeking to gag his critics. ‘If you shut someone’s mouth, it does not mean that you have become stronger,’ he warned. ‘If sober-minded people are silenced, then you only become dumber and more corrupt, but not stronger in any way.’
Putin extremely suspicious of the Russian military
Putin deployed the Wagner Private Military company in Ukraine, which has played a large part in the seven-month-long battles raging around the city of Bakhmut – a major target for Putin’s invading troops. Wagner has claimed to take towns in the region singlehandedly, publicly embarrassing the Russian Armed Forces. ‘As for the [regular] army, there is the problem of destroying professionalism,’ Ivashov said. Russia is paying the price for the Putin era’s demoting of military professions and instead bringing in secret services cronies and even alcohol and furniture experts to key military positions,’ the retired general said. ‘To go to war with such an army is more than a crime,’ he said. He forecast failure if Putin forces through a new mass mobilization, and as a hardliner he berated the dictator for seeking to gag his critics. ‘If you shut someone’s mouth, it does not mean that you have become stronger,’ he warned. ‘If sober-minded people are silenced, then you only become dumber and more corrupt, but not stronger in any way.’
The Russian assault on Bakhmut has been spearheaded by mercenaries of the Wagner group. Britain’s defense ministry said on Tuesday the mercenaries had made small gains in the northern outskirts in the past three days but an advance to the south of Bakhmut had probably made little progress. The capture of Bakhmut would give Russia a new foothold in Donetsk and a rare victory after months of setbacks.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said that the U.S.-led NATO military alliance demonstrated its hostility towards Russia every day, and was becoming more and more involved in the conflict in Ukraine. ‘NATO is an organization which is hostile to us and which proves this hostility every day,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. ‘It is trying its best to make its involvement in the conflict around Ukraine as clear as possible,’ Peskov added. Moscow has said weapons supplies to Ukraine by NATO countries are dragging out the conflict and raising the possibility of a further escalation. Kyiv and the West say deliveries of advanced military hardware are crucial in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s offensive.
Lack of military wisdom
Using intellect is the way to victory, Ivashov said. ‘In our country, instead of intellect, people are twisting their arms, intimidating, imprisoning. In such a situation, the country always loses and does not live long. We have already experienced a systemic crisis, and what will happen next, I cannot say, I can only speculate.’ Ivashov, 79, was senior aide to Soviet defense minister Marshal Dmitry Ustinov. He then headed the military cooperation department at the Russian defense ministry, and later was president of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems.
Putin is leading Russia to humiliation
On Tuesday, Russian forces bombarded Ukrainian positions along the frontlines in eastern Donetsk region in what appeared to be early salvoes of the new offensive – as NATO allies met in Brussels to plan stepped-up supplies to the Kyiv government. Ukraine said Bakhmut was in a precarious position. ‘There is not a single square meter in Bakhmut that is safe or that is not in range of enemy fire or drones,’ regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukraine’s national broadcaster. He said Russian artillery was hitting targets all along the frontlines in Donetsk, which along with Luhansk region makes up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland and a main objective for the Russians.
With the first anniversary of the invasion approaching, the Kremlin has intensified operations across a broad area of southern and eastern Ukraine and a major new offensive has been widely anticipated. On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the bombardments and ground attacks indicated the offensive was already underway.
Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday its forces had repelled attacks in five settlements in Luhansk and six in Donetsk, including in Bakhmut, over the past 24 hours. They had also beaten back an attack on a town in Kharkiv region, which borders Russia in northeast Ukraine. ‘The situations is difficult as a whole, but controlled,’ Kyrylenko said. ‘The enemy has not been able to achieve a tactical or strategic success there.’
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