A BRIEF HISTORY OF NATO AND UKRAINE

Sonar 21 ^ | 20 Mar 24 | Larry Johnson

[delta7]

If you thought that NATO troop activities in Ukraine is something that developed in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup, think again. NATO has been mucking around in Ukraine since 1991. That 33 years for the math challenged out there.

Before I dig into this topic, I participated in a Zoom Webinar put on by the European Association for the Defense of Minorities, which was held in Athens, Greece. The topic — Ukraine: The Search of a Peaceful Solution of the Military Conflict.

I recorded a video that replicates my remarks to that group. I don’t know if they intend to post the video of the conference, so I recorded my own version:

I realized that I do not have a full grasp of NATO’s history with Ukraine. So I started digging. As I noted in the intro paragraph NATO started putting its nose under the Ukrainian tent in 1991 as the Soviet Union came apart at the seams. Don’t take my word for it. Here is an extended quote from the 2005 NATO Handbook:

History of NATO and Ukraine (NATO Handbook 2005) — Formal relations between NATO and Ukraine began in 1991, when Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (later replaced by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council) immediately upon achieving independence following the break-up of the Soviet Union. In 1994, Ukraine became the first member state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to join the Partnership for Peace (PfP). During the 1990s, the country also demonstrated its commitment to contributing to Euro-Atlantic security through its support for NATO-led peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. In Madrid on 9 July 1997, the Ukrainian president and NATO heads of state and government signed a Charter for a Distinctive Partnership between NATO and Ukraine. It provides the formal basis for NATO-Ukraine relations and was an opportunity for NATO member countries to reaffirm their support for Ukrainian sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity, democratic development, economic prosperity and status as a non-nuclear weapons state, as well as for the principle of inviolability of frontiers.

The Alliance regards these as key factors of stability and security in Central and Eastern Europe and on the continent as a whole. The Charter also established the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC), which is the decision-making body responsible for developing the relationship between NATO and Ukraine and for directing cooperative activities. It provides a forum for consultation on security issues of common concern and is tasked with ensuring the proper implementation of the Charter’s provisions, assessing the overall development of the NATO-Ukraine relationship, surveying planning for future activities and suggesting ways of improving or further developing cooperation. It is also responsible for reviewing cooperative activities organised within different frameworks such as the Partnership for Peace, as well as activities in the military-to-military sphere, developed in the context of Annual Work Plans undertaken under the auspices of the Military Committee with Ukraine. . . .

Ukraine was one of the first countries to open a diplomatic mission to NATO in 1997, and a Military Liaison Mission was opened in 1998. Ukrainian military personnel also serve at the Partnership Coordination Cell located at NATO’s military operational headquarters in Mons, Belgium. In May 1997 NATO opened an Information and Documentation Centre (NIDC) in Kyiv. The role of the Centre is to provide a focal point for information activities designed to promote the mutual benefits of Ukraine’s partnership with NATO and explain Alliance policies to the Ukrainian public. The Centre seeks to disseminate information and stimulate debate on Euro-Atlantic integration and security issues through publications, seminars, conferences and information academies for young students and civil servants. Moreover, the Centre has recently opened a series of information points in several regions of the country outside Kyiv. A civilian-led NATO Liaison Office (NLO) was established in Kyiv in April 1999 to work directly with Ukrainian officials to encourage them to make full use of opportunities for cooperation under the NATO-Ukraine Charter and the PfP programme. It is active in supporting Ukraine’s efforts to reform its defence and security sector, in strengthening cooperation under the Action Plan, and in facilitating contacts between NATO and Ukrainian authorities at all levels. The Office also has a military liaison element that works closely with Ukraine’s armed forces to facilitate participation in joint training, exercises, and NATO-led peacekeeping operations. In August 2004, a NATO-Ukraine Defence Documentation Office was also opened to improve access to documentation for units and staffs of the armed forces involved in PfP activities. Take a look at the 1997 — Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine.

Ukraine made a formal request in 2002 to start the process for joining NATO. This coincided with Vladimir Putin’s initiative to strip Russian oligarch keen on meddling in domestic politics of their wealth. This also angered Western oligarchs who were licking their chops to get control of Russia’s vast store of natural resources.

Military exercises with Ukraine kicked off in 2005 in the wake of the Orange Revolution. There are at least two types of military exercises — Rapid Trident (an annual joint exercise with NATO forces) and a U.S. only mission — JMTG-U, which is the acronym for Joint Military Training Group – Ukraine. The JMTG-U initiative was based at Yavoriv in Western Ukraine.

Remember Yavoriv? Russia hit it with a hypersonic missile on March 13, 2022. Wikipedia plays dumb and pretends that Yavoriv was just some normal base:

The facility houses an International Center for Peacekeeping and Security within the framework of the Ukraine–NATO Partnership for Peace program and the National Military Academy Hetman Petro Sahaidatschnyj. But as you will read and see in the following quotes and videos, Yavoriv was NATO Central in Ukraine and it was the primary base of operations for U.S. soldiers deployed temporarily to Ukraine over the years for training Ukrainian forces. When Russia hit it in March 2022 it scared the hell out of the NATO commanders. They realized their troops were no longer safe at a base that had hosted NATO and US troops for at least 16 years.

Here is a video of the first Rapid Trident military exercise.

I have not had time to do a thorough search of all NATO and US exercises in Ukraine — if any of you have some spare time, please dig in; I would like to pull together a complete list of every NATO and US military exercise carried out in Ukraine since 2005. I suspect it is more than 40, but that’s just a guess at this point. Here is just a sampling of what I found.

July 2006 — In May Kiev will host an international conference with representatives of NATO’S 26 members; Ukraine will take part in the conference. Two months later Ukraine will, under NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, host its “Rapid Trident-2006” exercise at the National Defense Academy.

29 October 2014 — Capt. John Billington, a paratrooper with U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, briefs Gen. Mark A. Milley, chief of staff of the Army, Oct. 29 about a platoon live-fire exercise during his visit to the International Peacekeeping and Security Center near Yavoriv, Ukraine. Soldiers with the Ukrainian national guard practiced how to conduct movement-under-fire using live ammunition. Paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade are in Ukraine to train Ukraine’s newly-formed national guard as part of Fearless Guardian, which is schedule to last through November. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Adriana Diaz-Brown, 10th Press Camp Headquarters)

9 January 2015 — U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, visited paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade as they trained soldiers with the Ukrainian national guard here during a trip to observe Fearless Guardian Sept. 1, 2015.

Fearless Guardian is the name for the Congress-approved, Departments of State and Defense initiative to train the newly-formed Ukraine national guard under the Global Security Contingency Fund-Ukraine. The U.S. military and the training provided are at the request of the Ukrainian government.

In September 2015 NATO and Ukraine held the field exercise “Ukraine 2015”, their third joint exercise in emergency response, hosted by Ukraine. The exercise hosted teams from 28 NATO and partner nations.

September 2017 — Former U.S. Central Command commander and advisor to the Ukrainian government, retired U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid, and Ukrainian army Lt. Gen. Pavlo Tkachuk, the chief of the Ukrainian National Military Academy, meet with Yavoriv Combat Training Center officers during Exercise Rapid Trident 2017 at the Yavoriv CTC on the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in Western Ukraine, on Sept. 19. Rapid Trident is an annual, multinational exercise involving approximately two thousand personnel from 14 nations. The exercise is composed of a multinational, brigade-level, computer-assisted

October 2021 — Rapid Trident 21 continued more than 25 years of partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine. Through efforts such as Rapid Trident 21 and Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine, the U.S. Army supports ongoing training efforts and enhanced defensive capabilities of Ukraine. Rapid Trident 21 was the final training phase, or culminating event, of an intense and realistic annual training exercise to prepare Ukrainian Land Force units for the challenges of real-world situations and deployments.

Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine is the name given to the mission of training the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 7th Army Training Command oversees the JMTG-U mission, currently manned by Task Force Thunder, 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team, Mississippi Army National Guard.

With this information in hand it makes it clear that Russia’s stated objective of “demilitarization” of Ukraine also means terminating the activity of NATO and US forces inside Ukraine. If Macron is stupid enough to send thousands of French soldiers to Ukraine, they will discover what Napoleon did in 1812. When the Russian bear bites he takes off your ass.

[Gaffer]

The juice ain’t worth the squeeze in UKR’s case. Not when it costs our own border security.

[yuleeyahoo]

https://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2006/hb-en-2006.pdf

You’re right. Russia must be pretty desperate to quote directly from the NATO handbook.

[Robert DeLong]

Oh, aren't you the clever little simpleton who lacks brains, and thus will never obtain critical thinking skills.

That's why you can't engage in any real adult conversation.

It's also why you will always be a useful idiot, and a worthless little mental midget.

[JonPreston]

Moscow's proxy war in, and invasion of, Ukraine, was planned by Putin, long ago. Putin began planning the invasion of Georgia, in 1999.

So you offer a YT from the Kiev Post as support for this assertion?

Is there something wrong with you?

[linMcHlp]

The video plus the other part of my reply above, Andrew Peek’s PhD doc., are worth some study.