Having taken note of Daily Sabah’s latest interview with my honorable Ukrainian colleague, Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar, and given the importance of the issues he raised, I presume it to be fair to use my legitimate right of response. I do hope you will find it possible to publish my letter in full. I’m going to sign it: Some weeks ago Daily Sabah refused to publish a frank and fair reply to one of Daily Sabah's publications by a famous Russian blogger because of his anonymous status – though I always thought that arguments and ideas are more important than their form and shape. Now with my signature, all of the formalities have been respected.
First, despite all the noise my fellow colleague and the whole Western propaganda machine are making regarding it, what is happening now is not about Ukraine, with all my respect to this country. It is about Russia and its national interests, its security first of all. And, this said, it is about relations between Russia and NATO, and Russia and the U.S.
Indeed, we sincerely think that the alliance moving closer and closer to the East and our borders constitutes a serious threat to our national security. This is why we demand that NATO curtails certain actions, including stationing advanced offensive strike weapons in areas close to Russia, including Ukraine. We just don’t want cruise missile launchers to be based in eastern Ukraine where their flight time to the heart of Russia, including Moscow, will be around three minutes. And we are determined not to let it happen.
Is such a desire peculiar or illegal? I don’t think so. Here’s a good example from history: When late U.S. President John F. Kennedy learned in 1962 of a possible stationing of Soviet nuclear facilities in Cuba, he immediately reacted by declaring a naval blockade of the island and, furthermore, rallied the U.S. Army and Navy to prepare for a preventive strike against the Soviet missiles and air force bases. No one has ever blamed him for that: A close presence of a potential adversary’s striking forces is an existential threat to any power. And Ukraine’s entering NATO is definitely an equal threat to Russia, whatever you say. What is important in war and politics is the real potential, not intentions or empty declarations.
Second, “trying to limit the sovereignty of other countries and dictate how they should build their domestic and foreign policy”? Well, well, well, sounds noble and even highly pathetic. But there’s one sad reality: When you enter a military alliance, you inevitably hand over at least a part of your national sovereignty to someone else, be it an allied headquarters, an operational command, etc. So, those who want to enter a bloc must subordinate their political will and military capacities to someone else’s vision and assessment, sometimes even to a dictate, for example, from the other coast of the Atlantic.
Are you OK with this? Oh, really, so they’re the good guys? They are fighting against the bad guys; they would never suppress the will of peoples and their freedom and sovereignty, would they? And what about such glorious NATO actions as the "Resolute Support Mission" in Afghanistan – so happily terminated, or bombing out the Serbs, or a regime-overthrowing operation in Libya that has given us all a headache up until now? Wasn’t the sovereignty of these countries’ people torn to pieces? Weren’t these people subject to a rude and merciless NATO dictate?
If someone is happy with that, let them be, it’s their right. But if I were the one to decide, I would try my best to avoid situations where my country’s neighbors nourishing such sentiments would have a chance to be integrated into military alliances of such a reputation, seeking to deploy their most sophisticated strike weapons with close proximity to my borders.
The third is Donbass. It is a real bleeding wound since the Kyiv regime started a civil war there against its own people in 2014. You say Ukraine lost 66 soldiers in 2021. It’s more than deplorable, but please keep in mind that the people of Donbass during the same period lost 77 people, seven of whom were civilians. Since the start of the conflict, 5,038 people have been killed in Donbass, including 91 children.
You say that Russia has concentrated more than 100,000 troops. Why on Earth is no one interested in how many Ukrainian troops are located there and how many state-of-the-art Javelin anti-tank missiles and Bayraktar drones are deployed in the region?
Finally, I would like the readers of Daily Sabah to know that Russia is ready for an agreement on the presumption that it is a fair and equitable one, taking into account our legitimate security concerns. We would be happy to conclude such a deal, and we would be more than happy if our Western partners luckily “sell” it to our Ukrainian brothers, appeasing their exacerbated fears and long-cherished complexes.
