Putin Staged Masquerade With Lukashenka

NATO is ready to respond.

Following the summit in Washington, NATO adopted a declaration in which paragraph 13 reads that hybrid operations against allies can reach the level of an armed attack and subsequently lead to the launch of NATO's Article 5. The Alliance actually equated sabotage and hybrid attacks with attacking their countries.

What does sabotage mean? Attacks on the critical infrastructure of the Allied states. For example, very important underwater cables, which transmit the Internet and telephone communications. Perhaps it is these cables that Russia is already mining. The Russians are able to mine the cables of the network around the world in order to leave NATO and the whole of Europe without the Internet at one time at hour X.

Hybrid attacks should be understood as cyber attacks on critical infrastructure facilities of Western nations. These can be attacks by nuclear power plants, for example, France, the United States, Canada or other countries. Moreover, such attacks can lead to a complete collapse. If a certain country is left without electricity, nothing will work, especially means of communication such as the Internet.

NATO quite correctly decided that confronting these potential attacks could involve the application of Article 5 of the Treaty. Because such actions from the point of view of danger are almost direct military aggression.

The real application of Article 5 for all 75 years of NATO's existence happened only once – on September 11, 2001, when the terrorist attack. But in fact, this cannot be called the application of the article, because the American troops were not put on full combat readiness with the use of weapons. In fact, no one used weapons. The US independently solved all the tasks of restoring security.

The fifth article was not used in situations of military conflicts, such as, for example, Russia's war against Ukraine. It was not used during the events in Yugoslavia, when many NATO member states refused to participate in this operation.

Therefore, it is difficult to say how the mechanism will work in practice. No one can guarantee that countries such as Slovakia or Hungary will not refuse to participate in the war for NATO. And then it will be unclear how to apply this fifth article.

A scenario is also possible in which Russia will finance the coming to power in a certain European country of such a figure as, for example, Orban. What will be the reaction of such a policy? The figure will block everything. However, the United States is unlikely to pay much attention to such decisions and will still apply everything that is needed. There will also be decisions on the country that sabotages everything. Everyone will understand that such a country is actually on the side of the aggressor and only covers itself with its fears.

Let me give you another example of when Article 5 of the NATOTreaty was not applied. In November 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet on its territory, which flew into its airspace from Syria. Erdogan warned Putin several times about the inadmissibility of such actions, but Russian aircraft definitely flew into Turkey. And then the Turkish F-16 shot down the Russian aircraft. The Russian crew died, and Moscow began to threaten Ankara with war-like things.

Turkey asked NATO to apply Article 5 against Russia. But NATO member states held consultations under Article 4 and told Erdogan something like this: "Sorry, we cannot apply Article 5, because this is not a war. It's just an incident. You warned them but the aircraft still came - well, what can we do?"

Military aircraft often fly into the airspace of other sovereign states. Russian aircraft systematically cross the airspace of European nations. The reaction will depend on the level of severity of the incident and whether it can be interpreted as aggression.

But if Russia and Belarus commit aggression against the Suwalki corridor, NATO's reaction will already be tough. I think the Alliance has long had a consensus on the application of Article 5 of the in the event of an attack on the Suwalki corridor. The attack of this section is the most likely scenario of Russian aggression against the Baltic States and Poland. NATO will be ready for a serious decision.

If there is a certain unexpected conflict or circumstances for which no one has prepared, then consultations will take place. As it was with the fall of an alleged Ukrainian missile in Poland. We wanted the application of Article 5 to begin, but the Americans reacted rather sluggish and were in no hurry to do it. The fall of the missile debris is usually regarded as an incident, not an aggression, so in such cases it is Article 4 that applies and consultations are held. To trigger Article 5, there must be irrefutable evidence of deliberate aggression, such as Russia's military attack on Ukraine.

However, the West understands the danger from Russia and agreements such as the deployment of American Tomahawk missiles, SM-6 and hypersonic weapons in Germany testify to this. I see this as a response to Russia's deployment of its missiles contrary to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed even earlier. This is already an old dispute between the United States and Russia, which has manufactured and even tested its missiles since 2010-2011, contrary to the US-Russian agreement.

The Americans are responding to Russian threats. The Russians have increased the number of their Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region near NATO, deployed the same missiles and military units in Belarus, and also threatened to deploy several low-yield nuclear warheads in Belarus. Although there is no final confirmation of the deployment of Russia's nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russians frighten the West by saying that if NATO attacks Belarus, Minsk will be able to use "its own" nuclear weapons in response.

However, everyone understands perfectly well that Belarus has nothing – everything is in the hands of the Kremlin and Putin. Nuclear button is in Moscow. And it is Russian, not Belarusian. Lukashenka is just a lightning rod for Putin. They say that Lukashenko is a kind of stupid old man who can use nuclear weapons against NATO if it attacks him. And Putin is supposedly good, white and fluffy – he does not threaten anyone and does not use nuclear weapons. Putin wants to say something like this: "Lukashenka is dangerous, and if you withdraw troops from the Baltic states, I will talk to him, and perhaps he will change his mind."

This is exactly what the stupid Kremlin scenario looks like, which is designed for fools. A masquerade, which, fortunately, has long been gone in NATO.

Yuriy Romaniuk, Glavred

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