With concern still high over a potential war between Russia and Ukraine, NATO's deputy secretary general spoke to FRANCE 24. Mircea Geoana told our Europe editor Catherine Nicholson: "NATO will not get involved militarily in Ukraine – we support Ukraine in many other ways, individual allies support Ukraine. And in order to deter Russia from doing that ... is to really demonstrate to the leadership in the Kremlin that in a cost-benefit analysis, an additional military intervention in Ukraine is a net loss for Russia."
On the latest mobilisation of Russian troops and weapons in Ukraine and Belarus, Geoana described the movements as "suspicious and very unusual". "We are seeing a further mobilisation of Russian military presence in and around Ukraine, in Belarus, in a suspicious and very unusual way. Of course you do not know the real intentions of President Putin and what he will decide or not. But we are seeing with growing concern, further mobilisation of Russian presence in and around Ukraine," he said.
'No third party has a veto right' on NATO membership
On Russian President Vladimir Putin's demand that NATO rule out Ukraine ever joining the military alliance, the deputy secretary general told FRANCE 24: "Nobody says that Ukraine will join NATO any time soon. Ukraine has lots of things to reform domestically. And also we need NATO to have consensus – today we don't have consensus for eventual membership of Ukraine into NATO. But having said that, no third party has a veto right on a decision that is sovereign of the country, and the organisation they want to join. So it's up to us."
Finally, after Moscow accused the United States of trying to incite a war by moving NATO troops "to Russia's doorstep", Geoana contested that it's Russia's own actions that have pushed NATO to deploy troops and weapons in the region: "NATO didn't have any military presence in the Eastern flank before 2014, after the illegal annexation of Crimea. [Russia] want to have Ukraine in their sphere of influence. What's the result of the continuous war in the Donbass and the annexation of Crimea and the threat today against Ukraine? Ten years ago, only 20 percent of Ukrainian people wanted to join NATO and the EU, today we have 60-something percent. So in a way we hope that Russia will realise that they get the opposite of their intentions."
Submit your views and put forward your ideas on the role of the EU in the world to the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Produced by Isabelle Romero, Sophie Samaille, Georgina Robertson and Perrine Desplats
