“This is insurance for the Baltic countries and Poland.” Political scientist Pavel Luzin on the transfer of NATO forces to Poland

According to Luzin, the export of diplomats is more like a dialogue than a response to a real threat. “It looks like a peculiar way of communicating both with Russia (“we take your threats seriously”) and with Ukraine (“your position is not brilliant, do not make sudden movements, do not provoke or give in to provocations – we will support you politically, but we won’t defend you, don’t have any illusions”),” Luzin said.

In his opinion, there will be no direct clash between Russia and the United States at this stage, since the parties retain control over the situation and avoid incidents. In addition, Luzin does not believe that there will be a full-fledged Russian military invasion of Ukraine.

“This does not mean that in some indefinite future a direct clash between Russia and NATO is impossible, but now I see no prerequisites for it,” Luzin stressed. “Even for a full-fledged Russian military invasion of Ukraine, far beyond the demarcation line in Donbas, there are no conditions today. The maximum is the transfer of our presence in the DPR / LPR from covert to open under the guise of a “humanitarian operation”, for example, as well as some fire pressure on the Ukrainian armed forces along the demarcation line under the pretext of protecting Russian citizens of Donbass.”

The deployment of additional NATO forces to Eastern Europe is a response to Russia’s military exercises in Belarus, Luzin said. The Baltic states and Poland, the eastern flank of the alliance, are nervous – such a strengthening is intended to calm them down. This decision was made precisely as a safety measure.

“There are so far more declarations of readiness to do this than real actions,” sums up Luzin. – In any case, this is such insurance and a measure to calm, first of all, the Baltic countries and Poland – after all, Russian troops are now arriving for exercises in Belarus. As for the tenfold increase, this still seems to be too strong an abstraction. Still, 10,000-50,000 people is too big a spread. From the real: NATO has a plan for the last three years to increase the capabilities for the operational deployment of the forces of the Four Thirties alliance. He assumes that the allies together should be able to send 30 battalions (up to 1000 people each), 30 squadrons and 30 warships to the alliance within 30 days. It is from this limit that we must proceed. Of course, the overall armed forces of the alliance are much larger, but without a direct attack on one of the members of the alliance, they cannot be used.