Can NATO Member States Bring Troops To Ukraine?

The political scientist called a scenario in which this would become possible.

There are spotty reports from the Russian media about NATO's entry into the war in Ukraine. Not so long ago, the propagandists of Ria Novosti said that Britain had invited the Allies to consider sending an expeditionary force to Ukraine.

Why do such messages appear? Charter97.org spoke about this with the famous Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies:

— That's only propaganda. These reports should substantiate their thesis that Russia is allegedly at war not with Ukraine, but with NATO. They have no practical evidence of this, but the Russian authorities need to convince their citizens that the war is with NATO. The topic is mainly aimed at the domestic audience, but recently it is noticeable that they are trying to scare the Western audience with it.

This is an attempt to play on the mood of the part of the public that shares different conspiracy theories. Believes that some information is allegedly withheld from them. In general, they frighten the Western audience with the risks of war with Russia.

These risks, by the way, are now realized very seriously by Western politicians, but we are talking only about the situation if Russia attacks NATO member states. It's obvious (and there are many confirmations of this) that NATO as a whole and its members are not going to fight in Ukraine and join the war against Russia.

— Still, are there any scenarios in which either NATO enters the war in Ukraine, or some Allies send some peacekeeping corps, some other troops to Ukraine?

— We can assume purely theoretically, how it may look like, it is difficult to say. There are many broad future-oriented articles on how Russia can attack NATO, in particular, the Baltic States and Poland. There are scenarios regarding the capture of the legendary Suwalki corridor.

At the same time, many experts ask the question: Will NATO apply Article 5 in this case? There is no clear answer.

However, in most cases, experts recognize that if Russia directly officially attacks a NATO member state, the Alliance should enter the war. If there is still a war in Ukraine, then it will take part in hostilities in Ukraine. That is, they will protect NATO territory, but at the same time, there may be military operations in Ukraine. This is one of the hypothetical scenarios.

Russia, on the other hand, is counting on an attack in the hybrid war mode, as it did on Ukraine in 2014. They hope that then NATO will not apply Article 5.

— Indeed, more and more often we hear scenarios in various media about the time when Russia attacks NATO countries, but there are many hybrid methods that Russia already uses. For example, Russian COMJAM jammed GPS in Poland and the Baltic states. What might NATO's response be if Russia took direct, albeit hybrid, action?

— If we are talking about a military invasion, for example, in the Baltic countries, then I have no doubt that NATO will apply Article 5. Europe is actively discussing the risk that now, for example, Donald Trump will become the president of the United States. Would he agree to American troops defending the Baltic states? No one can answer for sure right now.

By the way, for example, there are NATO troops in Lithuania. That is, even if Russian troops ("little green men") invade in a hybrid form there, an attempt to seize military and state facilities, then it does not matter who attacks, but the very fact of the attack is important.

If there is an attack on NATO military bases in the Baltic states, then military action is inevitable. It is one thing to invoke Article 5 and to declare war officially, but the very fact of the attack makes hostilities a defence action.

There are operational plans for what to do and how to deter attacks even prior political decisions. I'm pretty sure that NATO already has specific action plans for cases of attacks on the Baltic states (such documents are usually secret).

NATO should help local authorities, police, and local security services to protect the constitutional order and state institutions if there are attempts at violent actions in the format of a hybrid war.

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