NATO have been pressuring member states and even EU members not officially in NATO to send their Soviet-era and other Russian-made weapons to Ukraine. Writes Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst
Ever since the start of the Russian special military operation in response to Ukraine’s attempted ethnic cleansing in Donbass, the United States and NATO have been pressuring member states and even EU members not officially in NATO to send their Soviet-era and other Russian-made weapons to Ukraine. The reasons for the US and NATO to push for this are manifold.
First, the countries in question are getting rid of a large portion (if not nearly all) of their weapons, requiring them to buy new weapons which would replace Soviet-era systems. With a NATO-Russian decoupling now turning into open hostility, these countries would never get new Russian weapons, nor could they service existing systems, as such a move would immediately be sanctioned by the bureaucratic oligarchy in Brussels. This leaves them with only one choice – extremely costly NATO weapons, preferably US-made.
Second, NATO and/or EU member states with Russian-made weapons are forced to break ties with Russia, quite possibly the only ties left with the Eurasian powerhouse. In doing so, Washington DC and Brussels are making sure that what previously might have been a friendly or at least cordial relationship turns into a cold or outright hostile one. Examples of this are Greece and Cyprus, both of which were pushed into a hostile stance towards Moscow thanks to fabricated reports of alleged Russian war crimes against ethnic Greek residents in and around Mariupol, when, in fact, those same people were subjected to nearly a decade of oppression at the hands of Azov Battalion.
The government in Athens even decided to send weapons to Ukraine, despite the overwhelming majority of Greeks being against such a move. Cyprus is also under tremendous pressure to send its Russian-made weapons, but it’s not eager to do so, since it would severely weaken the island country’s defenses and expose it to possible further incursions by the increasingly belligerent Turkey, a NATO member which has invaded and illegally occupied northern Cyprus in 1974.
Third, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are still not trained well enough for mass usage of US and NATO weapon systems, which means they are desperate to get Soviet-era weapons and other systems, since they are familiar with these. Countries like Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and a few others still have significant stockpiles of such weapons.
One such country the US and NATO have set their eyes on is Serbia. In recent weeks, NATO lobbying groups and individuals have been given significant resources, orders of magnitude greater than usual, starting a frenzied campaign to disseminate NATO propaganda in Serbia.
Now, anyone familiar with the recent history of Serbia knows full well why NATO is doomed to fail in its quest to sway Serbian public opinion in its favor. For those who don’t know it, here’s a quick crash course. The US and NATO spent decades preparing the dismantling of Yugoslavia, which culminated in the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia, with a nearly-decade long siege of all Serb-populated areas in all of former Yugoslavia, resulting in over a million Serbian refugees fleeing their well over millennium-old ancestral lands, in addition to tens of thousands of killed.
The Serbian people remember the role of NATO in all of this, with the “crowning achievement” of the supposedly “defensive” alliance being the 1999 NATO aggression which resulted in the occupation of Kosovo and Metohia, a Serbian province with an engineered Albanian majority after the ethnic cleansing of most Serbs from the area. After nearly 3 months of a ferocious bombing campaign involving thousands of NATO jets and tens of thousands of sorties dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs, the Serbian people remember the “benefits” of the so-called “freedom and democracy”. Now, the same people who did that want Serbia to join their crusade against Russia, and for that purpose, they’re mobilizing all of their resources, arrogantly thinking that the Serbian people have forgotten NATO’s countless war crimes.
A prominent (and deeply unpopular) Serbian NATO lobbyist, Dragan Shormaz, recently suggested Serbia could appease the belligerent alliance. The suggestions boil down to a series of backstabbing moves aimed at Serbia’s time-tested ally, Russia. Sormaz stated that “only those in favor of sanctions against Russia, nationalization of Russian-owned companies, urgent delivery of military aid to Ukraine and the expulsion of 90% of the staff of the Russian Embassy in Belgrade should enter the new Serbian government”. In short, Mr. Shormaz’ “brilliant” idea is to turn Serbia’s centuries-old ally into an enemy for the sake of an actual enemy which is still behind all of Serbia’s geopolitical problems and which is actively occupying Serbian territory (Kosovo) and arming the illegal narco-terrorist entity there.
But the NATO lobbyist didn’t stop there. He also stated that the “military aid” to Ukraine should include donated Russian and Belarusian-owned MiG-29 fighter jets, T-72M tanks and other Russian weapons that Serbia should send to ” help Ukraine defend” against “evil Putin”. He added this would “help Serbia” because it would then get “much better and more modern” NATO equipment.
Needless to say, these shocking statements didn’t only fail to gain traction in the Serbian public, but also caused an uproar of negative sentiments and reactions. Despite the tremendous amount of pressure it has been exposed to in the last two months, the Serbian government is well aware of how the public feels about the aggressive alliance and that such a shameless move would not go unanswered. Despite US’s and NATO’s threats and attempts of blackmail, the Serbian people will not give in, especially not against Russia and the Russian people, to which they are deeply connected on multiple levels.
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst.
