A few notes on the historical situation leading up to the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Jeanne Warren
10 July 2022
Expansion of NATO
At the time of German re-unification in 1990 the question of the expansion of NATO to the territory of East Germany, formerly in the Soviet sphere of influence, naturally arose. It was agreed that the whole of Germany, including what was formerly East Germany, would be in NATO. The Soviet leaders agreed to this, but there is a persistent story that the West agreed verbally in exchange that NATO would expand no further to the east. At the time, no European country east of Germany was a member of NATO except for Greece and Turkey.
This agreement never appeared in a written document and has since been denied by US spokespeople, but Russia seems convinced that it was made. When in 1999 Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were admitted to NATO, to be followed in this century by Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, and some countries in the Balkans, Russia felt both aggrieved and worried. On the whole, the West – especially the US – took a triumphalist attitude at the end of the Cold War: ‘We won. We can do what we like.’ Few efforts were made to befriend Russia, and there was no pursuit of the vision of ‘a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals’.
Dates:
The Soviet Union ceased to exist on 31 December 1991.
Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic and Slovakia
on 1 January 1993.
The Minsk Agreement(s)
From the time of the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, there have been hostilities in parts of Ukraine. An attempt at a ceasefire resulted in the Minsk Protocol, which broke down in 2015. Further attempts were made. What is sometimes called Minsk II left Crimea in Russian hands, called for referenda in the Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk) to decide between Russian and Ukrainian sovereignty, and a withdrawal of Russian forces. Ukraine was not happy with this compromise, and nor in the end was anybody else and it was not implemented. In retrospect, it might seem better than what has transpired.
Comparison with action by the West (quotation from an article by Paul Rogers, emeritus professor of Peace Studies in the Department of Peace Studies and International Relations at Bradford University, who has written extensively about the situation in Ukraine):
“In the US-led war against ISIS (2014-18), the most difficult task was the taking of a key ISIS stronghold of western Mosul in northern Iraq, especially the old city. The US eventually succeeded in this aim, following intense aerial and artillery bombardment, but the cost was the near-complete destruction of the city…. The appalling Russian bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities is broadcast to Western audiences thanks to near-24/7 coverage in the Western media. What is not realised by many of these audiences, is that this kind of coverage was also available, around the clock, during the Iraq War. Channels such as Al-Jazeera gave full accounts … of the injuries and deaths caused by Western forces, much of which was withheld on Western channels…. Many people living outside Western states [think that] what Russia is doing is not desperately different from what has been done by US-led coalitions in wars in South Asia, North Africa and especially the Middle East. If people are at a loss to understand why much of the world is not more forthright in its condemnation of Russia, that is where to look.”
| Previous Article | Next Article |
Back to August 2022 Newsletter Main Page
Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 520 • August 2022
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW
Copyright 2022, Oxford Quakers