Russia's claims

Is there any justification for Putin’s war?

- Mark Rice-Oxley

 

Nazis, genocide, Nato, history: Russia has no shortage of apparent justifications for its war in Ukraine.

But are any of them valid? Were Russian speakers endangered in the country’s east? Is Nato’s expansion a threat to Moscow? Were neo -Nazis running amok in Ukraine?

We assess whether Russia’s claims justify the invasion of a sovereign country.

Claim Nato has encircled Russia, threatening Russian security, despite assurances that it would not

Since 1991, Nato has absorbed 11  eastern European countries and three former Soviet republics. Some say assurances were given to the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, that Nato wouldn’t move an inch farther east after German reunification in 1990. But this is hotly disputed.

Russia’s logic is shaped by history. “The Russian historical view is that every hundred years or so there’s an invasion from the west,” said Tomas Ries, associate professor at the Swedish national defence college.

“From a Russian military perspective, I can understand that they were worried when Nato was enlarged,” he said, adding nonetheless: “The problem with this argument is that no one in their wildest dreams can imagine the west attacking Russia.”

Then there are the newly independent states that joined Nato. “This wasn’t Nato trying to enlarge.

This was countries hammering on the door saying let us in,” Ries said. “From our worldview, these are small countries that have good reason to be afraid of Russia.”