The thirty countries of the I WILL TAKE they reiterated in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Atlantic Alliance meeting in Madrid its firm commitment to Territorial integrity of Ukraine and they promised more humanitarian assistance and more weapons for Ukrainewho once again reclaimed his entry into the organization.
The 269 deputies from NATO member countries gathered in Madrid recognized that the war it will take a long time and they promised more resources for Ukraine. In particular, its secretary general, Jens Stoltenbergrequired more investment in military expenses. Beyond even that 2% of GDP on which all the allies have already committed and which Stoltenberg has considered as the minimum to contributeeven if, as he said in Madrid, it means “hard times for many”.
Zelenski, once again the main (and uncomfortable) protagonist of the Atlantic stage
The moment more critical of the plenary session that closed this Monday the 68th annual session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly was hosted by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, a regular guest at military bloc meetings. In his speech, which was enthusiastically applauded by those present, Zelenski returned claim entry of his country into NATO “as soon as possible”.
Zelensky’s constant attendance at meetings of the military giant could already earn him an equal position honorary in the Alliance. All the more reason after a few days ago, when a missile fell on Polish territory killing two civilians, Zelenskyj had no qualms about claiming his friends Born, as if it were one more than the cluban immediate military response against Russia, which still blames the incident today.
In NATO, Zelensky’s demanding tone is beginning to be viewed with irritation
This gesture was not liked very much in some instances of NATO, especially in United States of Americawhere do you start looking with irritation the demanding and demanding tone of the ex-comedian turned president of a country at war.
It was not the only case. On November 5, the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mijailo Podoliak he urged the United States and NATO to do so attack a Iran for the apparent supply of combat drones to Russia. The next day, Zelenskyj himself reiterated the need to “punish” Tehran.
In his speech to the plenary session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Zelensky referred to the democratic values of NATO countries, which, according to the Ukrainian president, shares his country, ignoring a stroke of the pen the uprooting in recent years and by his government of a dozen opposition parties, accused of being the fifth column Russiaor persecution by ethnic reasons of citizens of Ukraine of Russian, Hungarian or Romanian origin.
Or maybe the common values Zelensky was referring to were those of a warlike nature that led NATO countries to launch a “proxy” war against Moscow, claiming that Ukraine is only the first step in Russia’s conquest of Europe.
Zelenskyj asks NATO to protect the nuclear plant that the Ukrainians themselves are bombing
Zelensky, who accused Russia of war crimes and genocide protected from war, he also asked in his televised speech that NATO protect the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe and where an accident or a bomb could cause a atomic disaster even higher than that of the Chernobyl plant, also in Ukraine, in 1986.
“All of our nations are interested in it not being there no accidents in our nuclear facilities,” Zelensky told NATO lawmakers. Zelensky ignored that the plant is under Russian control, has Russian military stationed there, and that the artillery strikes launched against the facilities come from Ukrainian positions. Zelensky blames the Russians of self sabotage and bomb.
At the NATO meeting, Russia accused Ukraine of bombing the nuclear power plant. According to the CEO of the Russian State Atomic Energy Company (ROSATOM), Alexei Likhachev, the Zaporizhia plant “could undergo a disaster nuclear”. Lijachev considered it “obvious” that the Zelensky government “considers acceptable a small nuclear accident”, the goal of which would be to provoke a military escalation and lead to NATO intervention.
In the bombings of the last few days, a bullet impact against the roof of one of the nuclear fuel depots, according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry. Likhachev said that the establishment of a safety zone around the plant no longer depended so much on the government of Kiev But say Washingtonthe only one with enough power to dictate conditions to Zelensky.
NATO closes ranks against Russia, again in Madrid
The NATO Assembly served to reaffirm the spirit of European unity in the face of the Russian enemy.
In addition to the commitment to continue to help Ukraine with money and weapons, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has mainly served to reaffirm the European spirit of unity against the Russian enemy. “Leave Ukraine alone, respect its sovereignty. And until that happens, we will all be attacked together with Ukraine in its struggle for freedom,” said Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain.
Sánchez also officiated guest by his colleagues in the Atlantic Alliance last June, when NATO held its summit in Madrid and established its new strategic concept, with Russia as its main enemy.
The war will last a long time, as participants in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly recognized. But that does not mean that negotiations cannot be started in advance, which is starting to be required growing insistence, including within NATO. Several groups have already intervened in the United States Congress, both from the Democratic Party in government, in its more progressive wing, and from the Republican opposition, who have asked for the opening of a negotiating path with Russia, given the Doubts in which Moscow can be defeated middle term on the battlefield.
More doubts about an anticipated defeat of Russia in Ukraine
The Russian withdrawal from Cherson has not yet brought a major Ukrainian counter-offensive, because the eastern bank of the Dnieper River has become a bunker Russian. Now, part of those forces stationed since March in Kherson are reinforcing units fiercely fighting the Ukrainian army in Luhansk, Donetsk and other areas of the donbassEast.
After the first counter-offensive in September, which was able to recover important positions such as Izio or In Lima, the Ukrainian advance was held back by fierce Russian resistance. The Russian army still holds under its control almost a fifth of the territory of Ukraine and this situation has scarcely changed for months, though Stoltenberg insisted in Madrid on his optimism about the progress of the war.
Nothing is said about the parallel decline in American and European missile stocks
There is talk of the accelerated reduction of Russian missile arsenals with bombing a destroy Ukrainian energy facilities (this devastation could affect more than 60% of Ukraine), but nothing is said about it parallel decline in inventories of European and American missiles, which also crash due to the daily supply to the Ukrainian army.
Ukraine in a race against time before winter arrives
In Ukraine the weather conditions they are getting worse, but the Russian pressure on the cities does not decrease. In his address to the nation on Sunday evening, Zelensky acknowledged that “Russian bombing numbers remain, sadly, extremely high.”
And this is the danger facing the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The Russians can crouch, wait and continue to damage Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure at will, from their positions in occupied areas or from Russian territory. with surface-to-surface missiles or with air-to-surface missiles, which you haven’t used yet. In Syriathe current commander-in-chief of Russian forces in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, has used some squadrons of state-of-the-art Russian aircraft to devastate entire cities where the rebels of Bashar al Asad’s regime took refuge. If these weapons were used in the Ukrainian winter, the damage to the energy supply would be enormous, without exposing the bulk of the Russian military.
In this situation, the Zelensky government would barely have a couple of months before the collapse it was total in their cities. And Zelensky knows this, hence his desperate maneuvers before the United States and its allies decide that it’s time to do it stop a war that no one can win.
That is why in Madrid Zelenski kept asking: “Ukraine needs anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems in large quantity and quality.” And for this, Stoltenberg gave a alert noticeperhaps the most important sentence of the entire Assembly: “We must to be prepared support Ukraine for a long time. And yes, I know support comes at a price.” Though, she added, if Russia were to win, “that price would be much higher.”
