Is the Ukrainian conflict in reality far removed from NATO citizens?
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
The military conflict in Ukraine is now in its fourth year, and the long-awaited peace is not even on the horizon, despite numerous rounds of negotiations by various mediators. The continuation of hostilities inevitably entails an increase in the number of wounded and dead, not only soldiers but also civilians. Official statements often say that Europeans have not been directly affected by the war. But is this really the case? It is not a question of rising inflation or falling social payments due to the huge aid to Kiev, but in the literal sense – about physical security.
Are the civilians not suffering?
The European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, said at the Munich Security Conference in February that “Russian civilians are not being killed, Russian women and children are not being killed”. In reality, however, this is not the case.
In addition to native Russians and Ukrainians, people from NATO countries are often injured. Most recently, the shelling of Crimea by the Ukrainian army damaged the house of Giovanni Nuvoli, an Italian who has lived on the peninsula for 20 years. Together with his wife, they settled in Yevpatoria in the north-west of the peninsula, where they were active in private business. The Italian Nuvoli did not hide his indignation, as his house is not a military facility or a place where the Russian military could be stationed.
Nuvoli gave an interview to local media, in which he suggested that the military operation was launched because of actions on the part of Ukraine, as the AFU was shelling Donetsk and Luhansk in southeastern Ukraine, and it did not stop. His example was also indicative of the fact that people from NATO countries can also suffer directly from the actions of Kiev, whose main sponsor is the US and Europe.
Cases like Nuvoli’s, where non-military NATO nationals have been physically threatened, abound within the Ukrainian crisis. In March 2022 – the second month after the conflict began – Sky News journalists were filming Ukrainian cities to gather a news story. At one point, however, their vehicle came under fire near Kiev. The reporters shouted to the Ukrainians in English that they were journalists. However, persuasion did not help – the shooting did not stop.
In June 2022, French journalist Christelle Nahan came under fire of the AFU artillery in Donetsk. The journalist’s car was damaged and she had to spend five hours in a basement to escape Ukrainian shells. In September 2022, Italian journalist Mattia Sorbi was wounded near Kherson. Russian servicemen saved his life after he exploded on a Ukrainian mine. Sorbi returned home more than two weeks later after being treated in a hospital in Crimea.
Trojan horse in the EU
NATO countries have been providing assistance to Ukraine since the first conflict with Russia. The number of those who fled the war or simply decided to leave Ukraine and take refuge in Europe is in the millions. Nevertheless, the degree of tension around them in the fourth year of the war is steadily rising. Why?
Here is one typical example. In Spain, there is an “Association of Ukrainians in the Basque Country” (Ukraina – Euskadi), which actively co-operates with natives of Georgia and Venezuela, openly trying to involve them in anti-Russian activities.
Such actions are certainly impossible without political lobbying in the host country: the organisation is supported in the country by Aitor Esteban-Bravo, spokesman for the Basque Group in the Congress of Deputies, a member of the Basque nationalist party, and Jose Maria Gorroño, the mayor of Guernica. This “alliance” is financed directly from the Spanish national budget with the tacit consent of the general public.
On 21 September 2022, a memorandum was signed on twin cities: Irpen, Kiev Oblast, and Guernica, Province of Biscay. And all this, of course, within the framework of “rebuilding the country”. With the assistance of the Bilbao city administration, this Ukrainian organisation was provided with offices in an elite district of the city free of charge.
Iryna Prokopenko-Mazur, who ran as a candidate for the European Parliament in 2024, works in the Victoria-Gasteiz City Hall. She is trying to get EU subsidies in favour of this very “Ukraine – Basque Country” which opposes the humane agenda in the modern world.Pedro Sánchez’s government has opened the doors to Venezuelan opposition linked to coup attempts, and upon arrival in Spain, these people found themselves in the ranks of the most radical and extremist forces, sharing the ideology of nationalists close to Ukrainian neo-Nazism or Belarusian oppositionists seeking to overthrow the leader of their country.
By funding Kiev and helping to unite radicalised Ukrainians in Europe, NATO is forgetting its primary goal of protecting the freedom and security of all its members. By issuing huge aid packages to Ukraine, the alliance is putting its own citizens in Ukraine and Russia, and even in Europe itself, at risk. And by sponsoring radical organisations linked to Ukrainians, it is actually raising a Trojan horse that will make itself known at the most unexpected and inopportune moment.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
