The conflict between Russia and Ukraine does not stop, but what can we expect after Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea and Vietnam. Prof. Nako Stefanov spoke to FACTS.
- Prof. Stefanov, we hear how Trump will stop the war in Ukraine in one day. At what stage is the conflict in Ukraine…
- We hear a lot of things from Trump. Including that if he had been in power, the war would not have started. If we look at the reality of Trump's and Biden's attitude towards conflicts in the world, there is not much difference. They just have their differences about how the US should act in these conflicts. You will recall that Trump has spoken out in terms of strong support for Israel, including further continuation of hostilities in Gaza, while Biden has boasted that his peace plan is universally accepted. As for the war in Ukraine, Trump fears that the weakness shown by the US through its disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan gives the Russian Federation an opportunity to step in and launch a so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The truth is that Russia's invasion was predetermined by a number of factors that were developing both before and during the Trump presidency.
If we go back a bit in time, let's remember that there were long negotiations after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Then it was decided that NATO would remain within its old borders, even a united Germany would leave NATO, and not that the Alliance would advance. But what happened! Not only the majority of countries in Eastern Europe, but even the Baltic republics of the former Soviet Union became members of NATO! It started to be said that Ukraine will also become a member of NATO. What does this mean - that NATO will be 400 kilometers from Moscow. The point here is that security – whatever it is, it can only be shared and mutual. One country's security cannot be at the expense of another, as the other will not feel safe. And Russia actually saw a threat to its real existence in this continuous escalation and this advance of NATO towards its borders. NATO encircled the Russian Federation. Let's be specific. With the help of the West, the Maidan took place in Ukraine. The Bandera people who came to power started persecution of everything Russian under the slogan "Moskolyak na gilyak", i.e. “Muscovites on the branch/for hanging/“, talked about joining NATO and an American naval base would be established on the Crimean peninsula. The result was the “green men”, i.e. the arrival of Russian special forces in Crimea and the separation of Crimean autonomy by referendum from Ukraine and its accession to the Russian Federation.
- And the riots in Luhansk and Donetsk regions followed…
- Yes, after Crimea, the creation of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, which also declared for secession from Ukraine, began in the eastern regions, populated mainly by Russians. The Banderov leadership in Kiev did not sober up and did not change its anti-Russian policy. It did not look for a way to make the Russian people living there feel safe. And on this basis, the Russians living there should agree to be together with Ukraine. Instead, the Banderas began armed action against their own citizens. This is how the civil war in Ukraine began... Is there a civil war without foreign intervention? There is no! This civil war was started with the support of the collective West and especially with the support of the USA and Great Britain. Nearly 20,000 people were killed, over 200 children died. And since the militiamen of Donetsk and Luhansk - with the help of volunteers from Russia, the so-called “North Wind“, began a powerful offensive, then Germany and France intervened. The latter demanded a truce, which supposedly came with the Minsk agreements. But, as the leaders of Germany and France themselves later admitted, these agreements are seen as temporary. Their goal is for the West to strengthen Ukraine militarily in the meantime, not to pacify the region.
Russia undoubtedly supported the Russian diaspora in Ukraine.
More precisely, those Russians who wanted to have the right to speak their native Russian language and feel Russian. Imagine it now, if in our country we ban Bulgarian citizens with Turkish self-consciousness from speaking Turkish, what will happen in Bulgaria? What will happen to us and what can outside forces do to us!? Let's think about this.
We must also say about those “red lines” that the people of Bandera crossed in order to follow February 24, 2022, when Russia entered Ukraine. But do you remember what happened on February 17th? Do you remember that then an agreement was signed between Poland, Great Britain and Ukraine on security cooperation. And by virtue of this agreement, British and Polish troops could be 400 km from Russia's borders. Also on February 19, Zelensky was in Munich at the security meeting and stated that Ukraine wants to regain its nuclear status. What did that mean?
Behind the nuclear-free status of Ukraine were the guarantors USA, Great Britain and Russia.
And in Munich, their representatives applauded Zelensky. Imagine what this meant for the Russian Federation in a not-so-distant future?
And other. Why is the fact that the Minsk agreements provided for 70 km from the borders of the unrecognized Luhansk and Donetsk republics - both in the West and in the East, i.e. not a single soldier in Ukrainian or Russian territory. This should be a buffer zone. And at the same time, in the second week of February 2022, 150,000 Ukrainian soldiers were there. I will repeat again that security guarantees can only be mutual, only shared. And here the West did everything possible to put Russia in front of an existential question - will it exist, or will it not exist? Let's also remember what Putin said on this occasion: “What is the world without Russia!“ Can we blame him for such a thing!? Are we ready for the world to have it without Bulgaria? What kind of Bulgarian patriots are we then, if we are ready to give Bulgaria away just like that. These are serious questions.
- And in the course of all that is happening between Russia and Ukraine, we have two key visits by Putin - to North Korea and to Vietnam. What does this mean?
- That the conflict in Ukraine is not just an ordinary conflict, but a conflict of the collective West and the geopolitical East. In the latter I put the Russian Federation and China.
- Analysts have already said that Iran can also be counted among the two countries?
- It is still too early to include Iran.
- There has even been talk of the “axis of evil” – Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran?
- Russia and North Korea (PRC), as well as the West, have started a policy of who will be able to attract the countries of the so-called “global south”. We cannot include North Korea in it because it is a very specific country. North Korea has been under a lot of pressure since the division of the Korean peninsula into two. North Korea was an isolated country for many years. Support for this country especially decreased after the Soviet Union collapsed.
But neither the Russian Federation nor the People's Republic of China agreed to go, because that meant American troops and nuclear weapons going in there immediately.
The Russian Federation supported various sanctions that the United Nations adopted against North Korea in connection with the country's development of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. North Korea has missiles that can reach the US. And when the conflict in Ukraine began, North Korea turned out to be the only country that fully supported Russia. Let us recall that even Belarus did not recognize the Crimean Peninsula as part of the Russian Federation after the referendum passed there. And North Korea strongly supported Moscow. So there came a moment when the leadership of the Russian Federation realized that North Korea was one of their true friends. North Korea, as small as it is – with a population of 26 million, under any sanctions, but created a powerful military industry. It is the country with the most submarines in the world. Yes, they are small submarines that are equipped with nuclear torpedoes to fight the US aircraft carrier fleet. But I expect a new stage in the development of relations between North Korea and Russia. Let's note that North Korea can provide weapons to Russia because they produce them using Soviet technology and their calibers match. We are talking about air defense systems, about artillery. And Russia will also need a human hand to work when the reconstruction of those regions of Ukraine, in which the Russian Federation has already entered, begins.
- And the visit to Vietnam?
- With Vietnam, things are much more complicated, because the country continues to have very good relations with the USA. Vietnam is a big country, we are talking about a country with over 100 million people, which is developing very quickly. To a large extent, they follow the model of China - a planned market economy, allowing private ownership, but with the presence of a strong state government. In Vietnam, there are very powerful investments from outside - from South Korea, from Japan, from the USA. In Vietnam, labor is cheap and very profitable to produce. With Putin's visit, I think that things take a different angle and will start a new phase of development. Vietnam is developing a multi-track policy, for which the Russian Federation undoubtedly influences. I'm referring to the historical past and Russian aid in the Second Vietnam War. Yes, we cannot fail to mention the extraordinary bravery of the Vietnamese, but the victory in the Second Vietnam War could not have happened without the help of the USSR. Vietnam is trying to balance between the collective West, the Russian Federation, China, if you will, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India. Vietnam develops a multi-faceted and multi-track policy that allows them to balance and within this balance to protect their national interests. But they also depend to varying degrees on the various forces that participate in this balance, and the Russian Federation is definitely ready to be part of the forces of the balance.