The Longer Putin Continues the War in Ukraine, the More Likely Ukraine will Become a Member of NATO, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 30 – By launching and then carrying out his expanded war of Ukraine, Putin has not demonstrated his cleverness and strength but his weakness and cruelty, Abbas Gallyamov says (pointmedia.io/story/6a6c55e075d0d3346a25cb69). But more than that, by continuing the war, he is subverting his own purpose in launching it in the first place.

            According to the former Putin speechwriter and now Putin critic, “if Putin had agreed to stop the war last year,” US President Donald Trump “would officially have denied Ukraine the chance to join NATO” (echofm.online/opinions/lechit-golovnuyu-bol-s-pomoshhyu-gilotiny).

            “If Putin were to stop the war right now,” Gallyamov continues, “the result would not be so obvious” as ever more countries in the West are ready to have Ukraine join the alliance given that Ukraine’s military successes would make it a valuable and welcome addition to NATO.

            But even more, the commentator says, “if Putin doesn’t stop right now, then in a year, NATO will ask Ukraine to join the alliance and Russia will not be able to prevent that from happening,” thus vitiating one of the key reasons Putin has given for carrying out his “special military operation” there. 

            The consequences of Putin’s miscalculations are already in evidence, Gallyamov argues. If he was afraid of having NATO approach Russia’s borders and that Ukraine would unleash a war against his country, “the worst has already happened;” and the longer the war goes on, the more Russia will suffer.

            “At the same time,” however, the commentator continues, “NATO did not ENTER the war – although the plight of the Russian army at some could it made it possible for the alliance to do so. This fact clearly proves that NATO was NOT GOING TO fight with Russia from the very beginning.”

            Thus, by going to war with Ukraine and continuing it for so long, Putin has “condemned his country to a strategic defeat. Russia is losing both in the east and in the west. In the east because Russia is tied down in a war; and in the West because Putin personally has opened the way to the revival of NATO and Ukraine’s membership in it.