An attempt to create NATO bases in Ukraine will lead to the beginning of a hybrid war

Ukraine's Ambassador to Germany, Andrey Melnik, recently said that "Ukraine has no choice. Either we become part of an alliance like NATO and help Europe to become stronger and more confident in itself, or we have only one option left: ...to think again about the nuclear status. How else can we guarantee our protection?"

We will analyse this statement. Let's start with the nuclear status. Ukraine is a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Article II of the Treaty states:

"Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

According to Article X, each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related

to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardised the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance.

No one from the club of nuclear powers is very interested in its expansion in the face of Ukraine, not even the US. Germany and France, as the leaders of the European Union, are also not interested in this. Germany is not a nuclear power, and France, the owner of nuclear weapons, does not need another competitor in Europe with nuclear weapons, especially so weakly controlled ones. Russia will also never allow Ukraine to have its own nuclear weapons.

Concerning Ukraine's membership in NATO: for this organisation, there is an unresolved territorial issue in connection with the reunification of Crimea and Sevastopol with Russia. In addition, there is a more serious situation in the south-east of Ukraine in the form of the unrecognised Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics. Membership in NATO of a country with unresolved territorial issues carries risks for the military-political bloc in the form of potential involvement in an armed conflict.

It should be noted that Germany immediately reacted to the statement of Andrey Melnik: the Cabinet of Ministers said that the issue of Ukraine's accession to NATO is currently not on the agenda.

However, a significant strengthening of Ukraine at the expense of NATO is possible if NATO bases are deployed on its territory. Information about this appeared in a number of media outlets. It's about the plans to create two land bases and one naval base of the North Atlantic Alliance on the Ukrainian territory. Thus, the West plans to neutralise a possible Russian military operation to force Ukraine to peace in the event of Kiev's armed aggression against the L/DPR.

Such an approach creates a rather serious situation for Russia. By analogy, this could be compared to the deployment of Soviet missiles in the immediate vicinity of the US, in Cuba, and the subsequent Caribbean crisis, which almost led to a large-scale military conflict between the US and the Soviet Union.

In this case, Russia will have to act very harshly, similar to how the US acted in the Caribbean crisis. Moscow will have to deliver a clear, unequivocal ultimatum to Washington and its allies. If the US and its allies will not hear Russia, then it will be necessary to immediately take retaliatory measures.

The most obvious of these measures is the beginning of a hybrid war operation from the territory of the L/DPR, the purpose of which will be to expand the controlled territory at least to the Dnieper. As a result, a buffer state will be created – Novorossiya. Then Russia will recognise its sovereignty.

Opponents of this approach will argue that Russia in this case will fall under severe sanctions from the West. However, sanctions are still constantly imposed for any far-fetched reason, so let them be imposed as a result of significant geopolitical acquisitions, and not because of Navalny's tricks.

Russia's postponement of the response to the deployment of NATO bases on Ukrainian territory for later shifts the potential military conflict over the L/DPR only for a while, and also sharply increases its scale up to a military clash with NATO. Or there will be need to just wash one’s hands and to hand over Donbass.

Naturally, this will not end in Donbass, and Crimea will be next in line. As a result of the indecisive position on this issue, military operations will be transferred to Russian territory, which is by no means acceptable for Russia.

There is another option for a strategic response to the potential deployment of NATO bases on the territory of Ukraine. We are talking about the deployment of several Russian military bases in Latin America. This move by Russia will be extremely painful for the US.

If to speak about the states that could opt with Russia for such military cooperation, then they are not many. And all of them are on the list of countries that have recognised Crimea as Russian. From the Latin American region, there are only Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

From Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, to Washington in a straight line there is 3117 km, from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, to Washington in a straight line - 3316 km, from Havana, the capital of Cuba, to Washington in a straight line - 2198 km, and from Moscow to Washington in a straight line - 8354 km. So the savings in the flight time of Russian missiles are significant.

However, this option is not fast, it requires a long and painstaking preparation. But in any case, its elaboration should begin now, in order to apply it in case of an emergency.

Thus, if Washington and its allies implement the plan to deploy NATO bases on the territory of Ukraine, the whole world will face the Caribbean Crisis-2, which the experts of the RUSSTRAT Institute have previously written about.