The war in Ukraine has been going on for 2.5 years with no end on sight. Not only that, but we are now close to a nuclear war, according to the Norwegian scholar Glenn Diesen who predicted in November 2021 that “war was becoming increasingly unavoidable” as NATO was escalating tensions with Russia by strengthening its ties with Ukraine. Indeed, as Diesen argues in the interview that follows, NATO provoked Russia and sabotaged all peace negotiations, using Ukraine as a proxy to a geopolitical chessboard. Diesen is professor of political science at the University of South-Eastern Norway and author of scores of academic articles and books, including, most recently, The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order (2024).
C. J. Polychroniou: On February 22, 2022, in a move that few had anticipated, Russia invaded Ukraine by launching a simultaneous ground and air attack on several fronts. The war hasn’t gone at all as Moscow had intended and it rages on as neither side is seriously considering an end to the fighting. Yet, the invasion is in many ways a continuation of a territorial conflict between Russia and Ukraine that goes back to 2014. What lies behind the Russia-Ukraine conflict? How did we arrive at this dangerous juncture that is now dragging NATO into the conflict?
Glenn Diesen: I predicted the war in an article in November 2021, in which I argued war was becoming “unavoidable” as NATO continued to escalate while rejecting any peaceful settlement. This should have been evident to everyone if we had an honest discussion about what had been happening.
NATO was always part of this conflict, and it did not start as a territorial conflict. The conflict began with the Western-backed coup in Ukraine in February 2014, which was seen as a precursor to NATO expansion and the eventual eviction of Russia from its Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. As the New York Times has confirmed, on the first day after the coup, the new Ukrainian government hand-picked by Washington established a partnership with the CIA and MI6 for a covert war against Russia. It is important to remember that Russia had not laid any claims to Crimea before seizing it in the referendum in March 2014. This is not a commentary on legality or legitimacy, merely the fact that Russia’s actions were a reaction to the coup.
We are very close to a nuclear war, and we are deluding ourselves by suggesting we are merely helping Ukraine defend itself.
A proxy war broke out in which NATO backed the government it installed in Kiev and Russia backed the Donbas rebels who refused to recognize the legitimacy of the coup and resisted the de-russification and purge of the language, political opposition, culture, and the church. The Minsk-2 peace agreement of 2015 laid the foundation for resolving the conflict, but this was merely treated as a deception to buy time and build a large Ukrainian army as confirmed by the Germans, French and authorities in Kiev. After 7 years of Ukraine refusing to implement the Minsk agreement and NATO’s refusing to give Russia any security guarantees for NATO’s military infrastructure that moved into Ukraine—Russia invaded in February 2022.
It is correct that the war has not gone as Moscow expected. Russia thought it could impose a peace but was taken by surprise when the U.S. and U.K. preferred war. When Russia sent in its military, the small size and conduct of the invading forces indicated that the purpose was merely to pressure Ukraine to accept a peace agreement on Russian terms. Ukraine and Russia were close to an agreement in Istanbul, although it was sabotaged by the U.S. and U.K. as they saw an opportunity to fight Russia with Ukrainians.
The nature of the war changed fundamentally as it became a war of attrition. Russia withdrew to more defensible front lines, began mobilizing its troops and sourcing the required weapons for a long-term war to defeat the NATO-built army in Ukraine. After 2.5 years of war, this has become a territorial conflict that makes it impossible to resolve in a manner that would be acceptable to all sides. As NATO refuses to accept losing its decade-long proxy war in Ukraine, it must continue to escalate and thus get more directly involved in the war. We are now at the brink of a direct NATO-Russia War.
Did NATO provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Even if so, didn’t Moscow have any other options other than to resort to the use of military force?
NATO provoked the invasion and sabotaged all paths to peace. The NATO countries affirmed on several occasions that the UN-approved Minsk agreement was the only path to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, yet then admitted that it was merely a ruse to militarize Ukraine. This convinced the Russians that NATO was pursuing a military solution to the conflict in Ukraine that would also involve an invasion of Crimea. As argued by a top advisor to former French president Sarkozy, the U.S.-Ukrainian strategic agreement of November 2021 convinced Russia it had to attack or be attacked.
Russia considered NATO in Ukraine to be an existential threat, and NATO refused to give Russia any security guarantees to mitigate these security concerns. The former U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, argued during the Biden-Putin discussions that no agreements should be made with........