The Ukrainian crisis and the Munich Security Conference
Last week, the annual Security Conference was held in the German city of Munich, with the participation of many of the world's leading politicians.
Of course, the Ukrainian crisis was discussed at this conference, as before, but I would first like to draw your attention to the fact that, at the very beginning of his speech at the conference, Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, reminded those present of another crisis, the crisis associated with the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962; see below the quote from the official website of the US State Department:
Last week, the annual Security Conference was held in the German city of Munich, with the participation of many of the world's leading politicians.
Of course, the Ukrainian crisis was discussed at this conference, as before, but I would first like to draw your attention to the fact that, at the very beginning of his speech at the conference, Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, reminded those present of another crisis, the crisis associated with the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962; see below the quote from the official website of the US State Department:
In this article, I want to draw analogies between the aforementioned 1962 crisis and the present Ukrainian crisis. To do so, I will remind readers of the key moments of the 1962 situation.
In 1962, the Soviet Union - a sovereign state - deployed its missiles on the territory of the Republic of Cuba - also a sovereign state - with the consent of the Cuban government, and it was fully in accordance with international law.
However, the US government of the time believed that these missiles were too close to US territory and demanded that the USSR remove them from Cuba. To prevent the delivery of new missiles to Cuba, the Americans imposed a naval blockade of Cuba although this act violated international law, as a blockade can only be imposed on states at war with each other.
The situation quickly escalated, as the Soviet government, among other things, declared that the USSR could deploy its navy to ensure the passage of Soviet ships to Cuba. And the world indeed found itself, as Marco Rubio put it, "on the brink of nuclear destruction", averted only because the USSR ultimately agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba.
The situation that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis is very reminiscent of the state of affairs that developed in Ukraine before the start of the Russian military operation.
The Ukrainian government then, as before, stated that one of its main goals was joining NATO.
In the West, they are trying to connect this with entrance of the Crimea into Russia and the start of fighting in Donbass in the spring of 2014. However, back in January 2008, the then President, Prime Minister, and Speaker of the Parliament of Ukraine sent a joint appeal to NATO with a request to include Ukraine in the NATO Membership Action Program.
But as US President D. Trump said about this at the beginning of last year
D. Trump said the same thing at the end of last year too:
