Russia’s war is waged against the entire West. Ukraine is the front line

Oleksii Arestovich, former adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, made a statement during the Baltic Sea Region Forum, June 15, 2023 on whether the West will accept Ukraine to join the European Union and NATO.

First. I want to say thank you very much for your help to Ukraine and to discuss other steps required in this regard. Second, I want to talk about how Ukrainians feel today.

We are in a difficult situation, and have mixed feelings.

Second. We are fighting a real hot war in places like Bakhmut, Zaporizhzhia, and we are fighting an internal war. We are fighting to make Ukraine more modern, to defeat corruption, and solve a lot of internal problems.

Third. It should be noted that this is a war for victory over the russian picture of the world. russians, Chinese and Iranians must understand that attempts to seize territory in the 21st century and to organize imperial politics are doomed to failure in advance. 

Firm action should be taken to thwart such attempts. If we fail to show this, they will return to this tactic.

Fourth. This is the front line for Western minds and hearts, because victory in this area will give us knowledge and confidence that we will get additional weapons.

Will they accept us into the European Union and will NATO accept us? Will the West stay with us? Will the West understand the very essence of such wars waged by Russia, China, and Iran?

Such wars are waged against the entire West, not only against Ukraine. From this point of view, as you understand, we are all in this war. It’s just that Ukraine is on the front line. But, as many of you understand, we are all at the front.

When Finland and Sweden joined NATO, Russia lost the achievements of the last 300 years, since the time of Peter the Great, who had opened a window to Europe and had begun to actively operate in the Baltic region. The Russians will never admit the situation. They will always attack. The Russian strategy is based on one background idea: Russia has more power than any NATO country. Russia is against any of the NATO countries.  

It is stronger than any of them, except for America. And the first thing that Russia will attack is the unity of NATO.

Russia’s strategy is ‘divide and conquer.’

Their strategy is to defeat the West piece by piece. Beat the European Union piece by piece.

That’s why they focus their efforts only on Finland, on Sweden, on any of the Baltic States.

Russia believes the war in Ukraine to be one of the best ways to attack NATO’s unity.

Their attempt to win in Ukraine is an attempt to divide NATO members.

First, they were able to prevent Georgia from joining it and now Ukraine, which they attacked.

We don’t know what will happen next but we must counter them with more and more unity of NATO, NATO members than they could imagine.

A lot of Western leaders don’t think about defeating Russia the way we do.

But we contain it at least. The more united we are, the more we act as a united front, the higher our level of unity, the more chances we have to stop them. 

Until they realize that they cannot win a battle with such a united enemy, they will not give up their attempts to attack the Baltic region. And they will never admit that the Baltic Sea is closed to them.

For us Ukrainians, the main war we wage is a war for Western minds. 

We see a direct line, a direct link between how Western leaders see the picture and what Russia considers acceptable for itself.

Because Russia has always looked at the West to see how much they will hold it back.

And now, Russia is looking at the West trying to figure out whether the West wants to contain Russia or destroy it. 

While Ukraine is under shelling every night, Russian missiles arrive every night, and we lose 20 civilians every day because of shelling. 

And what does Russia hear from the West? – We don’t know if we need Ukraine in NATO.

We really don’t know if we want to defeat Russia, or just stop it? We don’t know if Ukraine needs more military equipment for this war, maybe for the near future, but it isn’t a fact that we are ready to support further. 

Maybe the conflict has to be frozen. Maybe Ukraine has to sit at the negotiating table.

How does Russia hear this? 

First, NATO lost in Iraq. 

After that in Afghanistan.

Before that, there was Georgia and now the time has come for Ukraine. 

After that the time will come for the Baltic States: Finland, Sweden, Poland and other countries. 

On the Eastern side of Europe, everybody understands what this situation means. 

We have an emotional historical experience that helps us understand what is going on and how to deal with Russia in this situation. 

People here, in Finland, are well aware of the prospects and the essence of this conflict. 

But when we talk from the point of view of the whole of Europe, the group point of view very often sounds like – it is not clear to us.

On the eve of the NATO summit, we are facing what I might call a cold shower. 

There is no calendar plan for joining NATO.

Most likely there are no security guarantees. 

We do not hope that we will join NATO eventually. 

All we can hope for at the Vilnius summit is probably more weapons. 

We know that none of Western doctrines imply superiority and victory over the enemy on the ground, without general superiority of firepower and without superiority in the sky. 

If we don’t have F-16, Russia considers that NATO is too weak to fight Russia and to defeat Russia. 

And NATO still does not understand that Russia is at war with NATO, not Ukraine.

Ukraine Front Lines

Tags: Russia russia ukraine war war