The red line, where does it go?
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No sooner have we digested the gruesome images and videos of executions of civilians in Kyiv’s suburbs than rockets slam into the railway station in Kramatorsk. The question then is what will be next. Where does the red line go for NATO?
The red line of ethnic cleansing?
Is the red line for NATO ethnic cleansing? Is what we are witnessing in Ukraine something other than ethnic cleansing?
I fully understand the argument that the war must not escalate beyond Ukraine’s borders. Nevertheless, it is problematic to look at the massacre of civilians. Read about girls who are raped before they are killed, read and see pictures of civilians who are tied up and shot in the head. How long should we be passive? I am afraid that the longer we do nothing actively, the more violence Putin will use.
War for democracy or dictatorship
Ukraine is waging a war on behalf of Europe’s democracy. They are also fighting a war for their own existence. Ukraine may also be Putin’s test to test how far he can go. We do not know who will be the next country in Putin’s dream of restoring the old Russian empire. Maybe it’s Moldova, maybe Georgia, maybe one of the Baltic countries?
I fully understand that the fear of Putin using his arsenal of nuclear weapons is real. He is both crazy enough and desperate enough to do it.
The Western sanctions aim to hit the Russian economy so hard that there will be an internal rebellion in Russia. Frankly, that upset is unlikely to happen. In a dictatorship where Putin controls the media, issues laws banning speech about the invasion that Putin doesn’t like and a country where the opposition is crushed by imprisonment and murder, that is hardly likely.
NATO’s arms aid to Ukraine is like the smallest form of help in the fight for democracy. No one knows where the red line goes for NATO. Maybe it exists, maybe not.
Sources:
VG: Reuters: Rocket attack on train station – more than 39 killed
BBC: Borodyanka: ‘There are a lot of people left under the rubble’