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NATO would have attacked Crimea if not stopped – Iran

Samizdat | July 19, 2022

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared on Tuesday that had Russian President Vladimir Putin not “taken the initiative” in Ukraine, the NATO alliance would have launched a war with Russia over Crimea, which Kiev claims as its own land.

Speaking alongside Putin in Tehran, Khamenei stated that “as regards Ukraine, if you did not take the initiative, the other side would have initiated the war.”

Describing the West as “completely opposed to a strong and independent Russia” and NATO as “a dangerous entity that sees no boundaries in its expansionist policy,” the Iranian leader added that “had they not been stopped in Ukraine, they would have launched the same war sometime later under the pretext of the Crimea issue.”

Considered Russian land since imperial times, Crimea was an autonomous republic within the Soviet Union until it was ceded to the Ukrainian SSR by Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev in 1954. The region fell under Ukrainian control after the breakup of the USSR, and voted to join Russia in 2014.

NATO considers Crimea to be “illegally annexed” Ukrainian territory. While the alliance has not threatened Russia with open war, it has demanded that Moscow return the region to Ukrainian control and a number of decisions made by its leaders and the government in Kiev suggest a possible path to war over Crimea.

NATO first established a partnership with Ukraine in 1997, and in the 2008 Bucharest Declaration stated that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO” at an unspecified future date. The Declaration remains alliance policy, and were Ukraine to join NATO, its 30 other members would instantly become parties to a territorial dispute with Russia.

For its part, Ukraine has signaled that it both intends to join NATO and intends to act on this dispute. Under President Pyotr Poroshenko, the country wrote its goal of becoming a NATO member into its constitution in 2019, despite Moscow’s warnings that having the alliance’s forces and weapons on its border would constitute an unacceptable security threat. Two years later, President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree ordering his government to “prepare and implement measures to ensure the de-occupation and reintegration” of Crimea.

Ukraine’s ambitions of joining NATO appear to have fallen by the wayside, with Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to Zelensky, telling Financial Times last month that Kiev won’t pursue accession any further. Its ambitions of seizing Crimea, however, persist. Zelensky announced last month that he intends to “liberate” Crimea, and a spokesman for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, Vadim Skibitskiy, declared on Saturday that his forces may use American missiles to strike the peninsula.

July 19, 2022 - Posted by | Aletho News | , , ,

4 Comments »

  1. “NATO considers Crimea to be “illegally annexed” Ukrainian territory. While the alliance has not threatened Russia with open war, it has demanded that Moscow return the region to Ukrainian control”

    NATO was created as a European DEFENSE PACT after WWII, but politicians have “Morphed” it into the Military Industrial Complex(it is now America’s Attack Dog in Europe,and brought about the demise of Libya, and Colonel Gaddafi).
    If NATO ever attack Crimea(Russia’s major access to the Mediterranean), it will be ALL OUT WAR. And when the A-BOMBS start flying we can ALL kiss our ass’s goodbye……Russia does not negotiate anything that is a threat to it.(Napoleon AND Hitler, found that out the hard way)

    Liked by 1 person

    Comment by brianharryaustralia | July 19, 2022 | Reply

  2. An eminently credible opinion by Iran, which — like China — has a many-centuries-long history, maturity, and worldview that put the “newcomer” USA in its place as the proverbial “punk kid” and “bully” at that.

    Liked by 1 person

    Comment by roberthstiver | July 20, 2022 | Reply

  3. Stupid IS as stupid DOES. Now Ukraine is on the defensive and having their butts handed to them by the morally just and Patriotic Russian forces. When it’s ALL over? They’ll be LUCKY to have part of what they HAD before their arrogance and belligerence mislead them…

    Liked by 1 person

    Comment by Z Loser | July 20, 2022 | Reply

  4. Before this article was written, Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), proposed that an eyeball-to-eyeball nuclear showdown….a “Cuban missile crisis on steroids” could result from a Ukrainian attempt to retake Crimea….and would make it “easier” to settle the Russia-Ukraine war…..on British terms. This from the institution which describes itself as “the world’s oldest and the U.K.’s leading defense and security think tank.” Chalmers describes NATO’s strategy over the last three months as that of “boiling the Russian frog”: progressively increasing the size and sophistication of its weapons supplied to Ukraine. Because of those weapons, Ukraine may be in a position to reverse Russia’s recent territorial gains and retake Kherson and Mariupol. That, however, would not occasion a nuclear threat; nor would Ukraine use those weapons and territorial gains “to destroy bridges, railheads, storage sites, and air bases” inside Russia. “A specific threat to use nuclear weapons in relation to Crimea … might be viewed by Putin as a way to restore some of his coercive power, even if he (and the U.S.) doubted whether he would deliver on such a threat…. If a red line were not accepted by Ukraine, Russia might then feel that it had to consider a series of further escalatory options, such as putting its nuclear forces on higher alert. Faced with the alternative of the likely loss of Crimea, Putin might believe that Ukraine (with U.S. encouragement) would be likely to blink first. It would be a moment of extreme peril, with all the parties seeking to understand the intent of each other even as they looked to pursue their national interests.

    “Precisely because of the peril inherent in such a situation, a nuclear crisis of this sort could make it easier for leaders to make difficult compromises. Provided that the war was ended and the blockade of Odessa lifted, Ukraine’s leaders might be willing to postpone a settlement of the Crimea question. For Putin, the failure of the invasion, and the subsequent success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, would have been a massive humiliation. But he would at least be able to argue that the might of the Russian strategic arsenal had, at a moment of great national weakness, successfully deterred NATO’s designs for dismembering Russia. This could be enough for both sides to avoid the worst outcome of all.” This is wishful thinking. Russia considers Crimea Russian territory and a red line that must not be crossed or else risk all-out war.

    Liked by 1 person

    Comment by Thomas Simpson | November 29, 2022 | Reply


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