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70 Opinion bne December 2021
There is fresh talk of war between Russia and Ukraine, but tensions have been rising as relations have been decaying for a long time. COMMENT
Talk of war increases long-standing tensions between Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Nato
Leonid Ragozin in Latvia
International headlines have featured the word “war” with alarming frequency in recent days. It has come in different contexts, but inevitably involved Russia as a key party. That makes it all the more alarming because Russia is not just any other country, at least when it comes to wars.
The Polish government describes the ongoing standoff between its security personnel and predominantly Kurdish migrants, who are trying to get into the EU from Belarus, as an act of hybrid war against Poland waged by President Aleksander Lukashenko and, by extension, his senior partner, Vladimir Putin.
Poland and Baltic countries are now pondering triggering Article 4 of the NATO treaty which envisages consultations with other members of the alliance if "the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened."
Article 5 of the treaty is triggered if a member state is attacked but Article 4 is for less extreme situations, when members are merely threatened. Article 4 has so far been triggered four times, once by Turkey over the 2003 Iraq War, in June 2012
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after the shooting down of a Turkish military jet by Syria, in October 2012 after Syrian attacks on Turkey and their counterattacks, and in February 2020 after increasing tensions arising from the Northwestern Syria offensive. Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland called an Article 4 meeting in March 2014 in response to the Crimean crisis, but the article was not triggered.
Meanwhile, US officials have been making unusually alarming statements about Russia’s alleged plans to re-invade Ukraine.
Finally, General Nick Carter, chief of the British Defence Staff, warned about soaring risks of a “miscalculation” that could result in a war between Russia and the West. bne IntelliNews columnist Mark Galeotti said in a recent opinion piece that there is no evidence of any Russian role in the Belarusian migrant crisis so far and the knee-jerk assumption that Russia behind every problem can lead to poor policy choices.
Although the border crisis in Belarus draws most attention, it is the standoff over Ukraine that lies at the heart of the story of