With the Russian invasion of Ukraine entering its fourth week, it seems that Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to achieve his goals by removing the government and installing others affiliated with him, but he succeeded in achieving a goal he did not aspire to.
According to an analysis by the US National Public Radio,NPRPutin has achieved only one achievement through his conquest of his eastern neighbour, and that is “Uniting Europe more than ever.”
Unprecedented consensus
It was difficult to see the consensus of the divided countries of the European continent, led by a bureaucratic institution represented in the European Union, according to the analysis, but the war pushed the European Union to take unprecedented measures and brought Europe together in ways not seen in decades.
“The level of unity and speed was fantastic, I would say it’s the first time we’ve seen the European Union move so fast,” says Bruno Leyte, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think-tank.
While US President Joe Biden is in Brussels Thursday and Friday for emergency meetings with NATO and European Union officials, Europe’s continued unity will be crucial to increasing pressure on Russia to end its war on Ukraine.
more assertive role
With intelligence reports that Moscow is planning an invasion, the European Union began drafting a comprehensive sanctions law two weeks before Russian forces cross into eastern Ukraine in February, according to an EU official.
This advance planning allowed the European Union to quickly ban Russian airlines from European airspace and confiscate assets from the oligarchs close to Putin.
The French government confiscated a yacht linked to a close associate of the Russian government, Igor Sechin, who served as the country’s deputy prime minister and is now chief executive of the state oil company, Rosneft.
In Italy, officials confiscated multi-million dollar villas in Tuscany and on Lake Como.
The European Union has also done something unprecedented, until then, as it began pumping hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons into a country – Ukraine – that is not even a member.
Commenting on this, Stefano Sanino, who heads the EU’s External Action Service, said: “I think what has become clear from this crisis is that the EU is playing a more specific role in terms of security on the continent and beyond.”
Send arms to Ukraine
In addition to the European Union, NATO member states also send weapons to Ukraine.
The shipments include Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger missiles that can target helicopters.
There are still no signs of Russian troops on the roads of western Ukraine, so shipments have passed unimpeded for weeks, providing a steady flow of weapons to the Ukrainian army that is outnumbered by the larger Russian army.
When answering a question regarding how much weapons NATO allies have sent to Ukraine, Guri Loek, Estonia’s ambassador to NATO, said: “It is clear that the Ukrainian forces might not have been so successful if they did not have modern weapons.”
He added that NATO countries have reduced the usual bureaucracy surrounding arms transfers to speed up the process. “The time period for sending arms has been reduced to an absolute minimum,” he said.
In the absence of a no-fly zone Europe’s defense will be strengthened
NATO refused to impose a no-fly zone out of fear that it would lead to direct combat between Russia and NATO allies and expand the conflict into a regional war.
NATO officials point out that the no-fly zone would include not only the downing of Russian planes, but also the destruction of Russian air defense in Ukraine and across the border in Russia.
The no-fly zone does not mean much strategically because the Russians have not relied much on aircraft to strike targets, says Olga Oleker, director of the International Crisis Group’s Europe and Central Asia program.
Meanwhile, NATO allies are looking for ways to continue arming Ukraine while strengthening their defenses once morest Russia.
Slovakia says it is ready to send to Ukraine Soviet-made S-300 missile systems that can shoot down jet planes miles away.
NATO allies have sent Patriot air defense missile systems to Slovakia for deployment to defend once morest a Russian attack.
The UK is sending the Sky Saber, a medium-range anti-aircraft missile system, to Poland with regarding 100 British soldiers to operate it.
Germany plans to significantly increase defense spending, in a marked turnaround following years of resisting Allied calls to do so.
The challenges ahead may remain a test for the united European front, according to the same analysis.
So far, there are no reports that the Russians have struck any arms shipments, but Roland Freudenstein, who runs the Globsec office in Brussels, a think-tank, says if it did, the debate among European countries would likely unfold as follows: “Can we Continuing? (..) Should we find alternative ways or stop?”
In response to those questions, the man says, “I expect there will be countries that will say ‘It’s time to stop’.”
Despite signs of union among European countries, there are also signs of division over whether to ban Russian oil imports to weaken Putin’s ability to wage a sustainable war, as Hungary has previously threatened to block such a move.
“We will not support sanctions that might endanger Hungary’s energy supply,” Hungarian news reports quoted Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szyjjarto as saying.
At the same time, as Russian missiles and artillery continue to bombard Ukrainian cities and civilian casualties mount, public pressure will only grow on NATO to do more.
“There might be huge moral dilemmas, while we see thousands of civilians being killed almost every day, we can’t just sit back and watch,” says Peter Bator, permanent representative of Slovakia to NATO.
Davidas Matulionis, Lithuania’s ambassador to NATO, says he cannot talk regarding how the alliance might react if Russia systematically destroyed Ukrainian cities and Ukraine became like war-torn Syria.
But he went back to say, “If something similar happened and NATO did nothing regarding it, there would be a big credibility question.”
