No doubt, the Russian president has
plenty of reasons to punish Ukraine – his own reasons. Ukrainian Crimea was an
easy target and just one half of his ultimate goal – the West.
Now Putin is enjoying his victory.
The Russians overwhelmingly celebrate and support their national leader. The show
must go on.
Who is next on Putin’s roadmap?
Most probably he will try to repeat the same scenario in the eastern and southern
regions of Ukraine. It may be Moldova – Transnistria is an even easier target
than Crimea.
Who is next then? One of the Baltic
States? Is this impossible?
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are
NATO members and they are protected by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. Well,
the Washington Treaty provides strong security guaranties, nothing to compare
with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, when Russia, the U.S. and the UK got Ukraine
to give up its third world largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guaranties
against threats or use of force with regard to its territorial integrity or
political independence.
Has this stopped Russia?
Let’s imagine the “impossible”:
Friday afternoon, when most of the NATO staff is commuting toward their weekend
destination, a kind of peaceful Crimean scenario begins in, let’s say, the
Estonian city of Narva where 88 percent of its residents are Russian. No
shooting takes place. Will it be considered as an act of military aggression?
If yes, how much time will it take for NATO to respond? What will the response
be?
Game over!
Oleksiy Melnyk is the director of foreign relations and international security
programs at the Razumkov Center.
