20th of June 2024 (Nicht vom Trump thumbnail schocken lassen. :), Kurt Volker war ehemaliger U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine und U.S. Ambassador to NATO in 2008-2009):
Kurt Volker: “Almost all of the Allies leave aside Germany, the US and Hungary, all of the other allies support an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO at the Washington Summit, be an invitation to start accession talks. This is what was in the Rasmusen/Jermak working group paper which I was a part of recommending this approach for NATO, but the US is not in favor of that right now, the Biden Administration is not, nor is Germany - and of course Hungary is a special case we don’t have to go into that. Um but he [Biden, when publicly stating (against US policy) the Ukraine should not be part of Nato] was probably thinking about the pressure that they’re under now. But in my view and again this is just me I’m a private citizen I’m not representing the US government but I don’t see a way that you have a permanent peace in Europe - let alone Ukraine, but a permanent peace in Europe unless Ukraine is a part of NATO. We have to have clear lines, we have to have an absence of gray zones where Putin is tempted to start a war - uh we have to bring Ukraine into NATO as part of the strategy for restoring peace in Europe.”
Context:
Alina Polyakova (President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA): I think that signals to me that there is growing agreement that the only way that we can manage Russia is by going back to the Cold War era strategy of containment, that begins first, defeating Russia in Ukraine and second, reestablishing deterance by denial in Europe that means hardening the Eastern flank first and foremost. Third hardening the soft targets of Russian influence across the globe - uh influence operations in the information space, cyber operations that the Russians have become very sophisticated at, pushing back against Russia’s use of PMC’s [private military contractors] to prop up authoritarian governments across the globe and undermine democratic leadership - and fourth, undermining Russian dominance in its former empire, because as long as we have so-called grey zone States a horrible term but, non-allied states that are not part of NATO that are not part of the EU in the European continent this is what provides fodder for Russian aggression so Moldova is very much under threat as we speak, certainly Bellarus has already become a vassel state of Russia and then we have of course Georgia and the other countries of the Caucasus as well.
[…]
And Russia will come back for NATO.
Hanno Pevkur, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Estonia (30.05.2023):
“What Russia wants to achieve, the political goals, let’s be honest - and they, these political goals of Russia have never changed, they want to have a grey-zone between Russia and NATO, they want to have a control over this grey-zone and this is what they want to achieve. And they want to have some “security guarantees” for themselves, sorry this is not the Free World and this is what Ukraine is fighting for at the moment, that they are fighting for - the Free World and rule-based world and this is why we support Ukraine so this is obvious and then this is why we can never accept this approach of Russia, looking at international law.”
src:
(at 43:50 in)
See also: click
Too bad I’m not at Youtube and cant set an alert filter for “grey-zone” on every panel interview video uploaded from now on. 😉
