Archives Russia s Special Military Operation - Page 21 of 38 - New Eastern Outlook

Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine started in February 2022, when the Ukrainians suspended all communication channels with their Russian counterparts. Before that, Ukraine made blatant violations of all the mutual understandings between Russia and the West, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is to be remembered here that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West and the Russian Federation mutually agreed that the NATO will not expand its borders. The then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker made it clear to the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO has no desire of expansion, and it will move “not one inch eastward.”

In the lead up to the Ukrainian military’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, even Western headlines were dominated by reports of Ukraine’s gradual demise. Ukraine is admittedly suffering arms and ammunition shortages, as well as facing an unsolvable manpower crisis. Russia has been destroying Ukrainian military power faster than Ukraine and its Western sponsors can reconstitute it.

On the evening of August 11, my companion and I were watching a Russian series about World War Two, Staying Alive, dealing with the first days of the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941. It’s an excellent dramatic work depicting the reality of the war and what it meant for the Soviet people. I highly recommend it. You can find it on the Internet. But what, you may ask, has this to do with anything?