05.09 Law Expert: Russia to Create Defense Alliance for Counterbalance in Case of NATO Threat

MOSCOW, September 5 (RIA Novosti) - As the NATO Summit wraps up in Wales, the Alliance has adopted its “Readiness Action Plan”, which is aimed at responding to the “risks and threats at NATO’s borders and further afield”, including “the challenges posed by Russia and their strategic implications”.

An independent expert in international law Alexander Mercouris however explains that “it is absolutely ridiculous to say that Russia poses any kind of military threat to the NATO alliance at all”.

“If we just look at the actual level of military spending, the various NATO countries between them spend around 57 % of the total defense spend that is spent around the world on matters and military matters,” he told Radio VR. “Russia spends 5%. And Russia has already made it clear many times that it has no aggressive intentions against any state in NATO and no capability to pose such a threat”.

Though in its final declaration NATO pledges it “does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia”, Alexander Mercouris says he is convinced that the Alliance is using the Ukrainian crisis as a pretext to move closer to Russia’s borders.

He explained to Radio VR that Kiev’s position on NATO membership has fluctuated through the years. President Viktor Yushchenko, whose term in office was from 2005 to 2010 strived for membership in the Alliance. But in 2008, NATO declined Ukraine’s application to join the organization as, Mercouris explained, most of the Ukrainians were opposed to that. And then it was the change of government in 2010 and the Yanukovich government was opposed to that idea and saw Ukraine as a nonaligned state.

“The people who overthrew the Yanukovich government in February are strong supporters of NATO,” he said. “And if one looked at what happened after that coup – they’ve got an awful lot of support from all sorts of people who want very much Ukraine to be in NATO. So, I think that was very much an idea. It was very much the plan.”

“But I don’t think realistically it is going to happen now, because I think that with the crisis in Ukraine being so severe I think a lot of people in the West are going to say that we do not want a country like Ukraine in NATO with all kinds of commitments to defend it when it is behaving in this utterly extraordinary unstable way.”

But Mercouris explains that Ukraine does not need to be in NATO to be aligned with the Western powers. And although there is no prospect of Western troops going to places like the Crimea or threatening Sevastopol, we could very well be seeing the attempts to increase a western military presence in Ukraine or at least in those parts of Ukraine that are controlled by the Ukrainian government and that would be certainly seen as a great provocation and a threat by Russia.

And then, Mercouris says, Russia will respond adequately.

“Russians will now see all of these steps as a threat to them and they will consider NATO as a hostile alliance,” he said. “And this means that Russia will start political and diplomatic steps to build their own counter-relations with other powers to create a balance to the threat against itself.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine Contact Group has signed a ceasefire deal in the Belarusian capital. But as Robert Oulds, Director of an independent all-party think tank The Bruges Group explained to Radio VR, Poroshenko had no other options “but to end the offensive because the war has turned against him”.

“President Poroshenko does not embrace the peace plan,” he said. “If he continues the military operation, the Ukrainian army will be defeated, that it is quite clear now, because the war has turned against him. Personally I think there will be a very strong case for him to be indicted to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This is absolutely reprehensible what is happening in Europe at this time - the people of the eastern Ukraine are being attacked by the Ukrainian army and these extremist groups and private para-military, while they have a clear right for self-determination.”

He also explained that NATO will not come to the rescue of Ukraine, because regardless all the rhetoric, NATO does not want a war with Russia.