High-level former western officials meet to discuss the proposed alliance. (Office of the President of Ukraine)
Former Western Prime Ministers
Propose Military Alliance with Ukraine
Andre Damon / World Socialist Web Site
(September 15, 2022) — On Tuesday, a group of former prime ministers, foreign ministers and other high-level officials from NATO countries published a document effectively proposing a formal alliance between Ukraine and NATO countries that, if adopted, threatens to transform the proxy war in Ukraine into a full-scale conflict between NATO and Russia.
The document, titled the Kyiv Security Compact, was formally presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who endorsed it, called for its adoption and published it on the website of the Ukrainian presidency.
The document calls for “the US, UK, Canada, Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, Turkey, and Nordic, Baltic, and Central European countries” to make “legally and politically binding” agreements to ally with Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia.”
The document affirms the intention of Ukraine to join NATO and the European Union, declaring, “Both NATO and EU membership will significantly bolster Ukraine’s security in the long-term. However, Ukraine needs security guarantees now,” the document says.
It adds, “Ukraine needs iron-clad security guarantees. These will come predominantly — though not exclusively — from NATO countries.”
The document was drafted by the “Working group on security guarantees for Ukraine,” which included senior politicians from all of the imperialist powers.
The group, co-chaired by former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, includes former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt, former UK Foreign Secretary Lord William J. Hague of Richmond, as well as former ministers from Germany, Italy, Poland and France.
Fully aware of the inflammatory character of the document, the group’s communications stressed that “members [of the working group] are taking part in a personal capacity, not as representatives of their organisations.”
The document hints at the creation of a “no-fly zone” in Ukraine, pointing to a “set of agreements, between Ukraine and countries producing anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense equipment to provide Ukraine with modern and effective air defense and anti-missile defense systems in sufficient quantity to ensure a ‘closed sky’ from air attacks.”
The publication of this document helps clarify the timetable for the events in Ukraine over the past month.
The current offensive was preceded by extraordinarily provocative strikes on Russian military bases on Crimea and the assassination of Daria Dugina, the daughter of the far-right Russian ideologue and war proponent Alexander Dugin. All of these provocations were aimed at escalating the war and bore the imprint “made in Washington.”
On Tuesday, the New York Times revealed that the latest Ukrainian military offensive, which has produced a collapse of Russian troops in northeastern Ukraine, was proposed to the Zelensky government by the United States.
“Together Britain, the United States and Ukraine conducted an assessment of the new plan, trying to war game it once more,” wrote the Times, “This time officials from the three countries agreed it would work — and give Mr. Zelensky what he wanted: a big, clear victory.”
It is clear that the political purpose of this “big, clear victory” was to create the political conditions for a massive escalation of US-NATO involvement in the war, in which this document plays a critical role.
Announcing the proposal, former NATO Secretary General Rasmussen said, “Just now Ukrainians are demonstrating on the frontline that, with the necessary resources, they can defeat Russia on the battlefield. Ukrainians demonstrate the will to fight, and the democratic world must continue to provide them with the means to fight.”
Russian officials responded to the publication of the document with a combination of blood-curdling threats and appeals for the imperialist powers to come to their senses.
“The Earth Will Literally Burn”
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, wrote on Telegram, “The Kiev camarilla has drafted ‘security guarantees’ which are a prologue to a third world war. Of course, no one will give any ‘guarantees’ to the Ukrainian Nazis. After all, this is almost the same as applying Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (the Washington Treaty) to Ukraine. For NATO, it’s the same s**t, only from a side view. That’s why it’s scary.”
If Medvedev believes that “no one will give any ‘guarantees’” to Kiev after over eight years in which the imperialist powers built up the Ukrainian army for precisely this war, he is delusional. Medvedev himself, after this self-reassuring declaration, threatened the NATO powers, “Everything will catch fire around them as well. Their people will be devastated. Their earth will literally burn, and concrete will melt. We too will suffer a lot. It will be very bad for everyone. After all, it is said: ‘By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulphur coming out of their mouths’ (Rev. 9:18).”
Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, declared, “A total commitment to supporting the Kiev regime would simply mean immolation [for the EU].”
As evidenced by these statements, the Russian government has no response to the systematic plans to escalate the war outside of threats to destroy the world in a thermonuclear exchange and renewed appeals to the imperialist powers to come to their senses.
The publication of this document, coordinated at the highest levels of the state of the leading NATO powers, makes clear that the US and its NATO allies are committed to a massive escalation of a war whose continued prosecution entails sweeping dangers for all of humanity.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
