(CN) — The standoff between Russia and NATO over Ukraine is entering a dangerous and critical phase as the Kremlin's language grows more bellicose and experts warn an invasion by Russian troops into Ukraine appears increasingly more possible.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned NATO against arming Ukraine and he repeated demands set out on Friday for legally binding guarantees from the United States to cease NATO's eastward expansion and withdraw from Russia's borders.
Speaking at a gathering of Russian military top brass, Putin declared Russia will “have a tough response” to NATO's “unfriendly steps” along its borders. In a troubling sign, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu also accused unnamed U.S. private military companies of being on the ground in the Donbas region of Ukraine and providing Ukrainian forces fighting pro-Russian separatists with chemical weapons.
Experts saw this as a ploy to provide a context for invasion, similar to Putin's recent comment that what Ukrainian forces were doing in Donbas resembled genocide. Replying to Shoigu's accusations, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said that kind of “inflammatory rhetoric” must stop.
On Friday, Russia sent the White House and NATO a list of demands in the form of a draft security treaty, including guarantees to keep Ukraine and Georgia out of NATO and to cease providing Kyiv with military aid. The proposed treaty calls for nuclear arms controls and promises to not launch attacks at each other.
The U.S. and its allies were quick to call the demands unacceptable, but talks are taking place to defuse the escalating tensions.
“We need to solve the current tensions on the diplomatic level,” said Christine Lambrecht, Germany's new defense minister, on Sunday. “We will discuss Russia’s proposals . . . But it cannot be that Russia dictates to NATO partners their posture, and that is something that we will make very clear.”
Russia has amassed about 100,000 soldiers near the Ukrainian border and there are growing fears that an invasion is imminent. The Kremlin has been warned of severe consequences if it invades, including the ejection of Russian banks from the international banking system and massive economic sanctions.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met last week by video conference and said they were setting up alternative financial structures outside the Western-dominated banking system to bypass Western sanctions.
Harsh rhetoric is coming from NATO too, though it has not pledged to send troops to defend Ukraine in the event of an invasion.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden is under pressure from Republicans to speed up arms shipments to Ukraine. Top U.S. diplomats and military advisers have become frequent visitors to Kyiv. The U.S. has provided about $2.5 billion in military aid since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
“It’s going to be very bloody,” Kaimo Kuusk, Estonia’s ambassador to Ukraine, recently said in a warning to Russia. “It’s going to be really, really bloody, because Ukraine’s armed forces are actually really good. They have already been fighting for more than seven years against Russian forces.”
The increase in military support for Ukraine is angering Moscow.
“It is extremely alarming that elements of the U.S. global defense system are being deployed near Russia,” Putin said, citing missile launchers in Romania and Poland. He said deployment of missile infrastructure in Ukraine poses a grave security threat to Russia because NATO would be capable of striking Moscow within a few minutes.
“This is a huge challenge for us, for our security,” Putin said.
For decades, Russian leaders have resisted NATO expansion into the former Soviet bloc after the fall of the U.S.S.R. They charge the U.S. and NATO broke promises made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that the military alliance would not advance eastward.