DNA Exclusive: Amid Russia-Ukraine war, a look at NATO's betrayal

New Delhi: The war between Russia and Ukraine reached its second day as Moscow claimed it has tightened control over much of northern, eastern and northeastern Ukraine.

As 40 hours have already passed since Russia began its “military operations” in Ukraine, what are the world's biggest superpowers doing? 

Zee News Editor-In-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary, in his show DNA, on Friday (February 25) questioned the silence of the world powers and organisations like NATO amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has exposed the US, Western countries and organizations like NATO, European Union and United Nations. All these western countries and superpowers can only give conferences and hold seminars on democracy and peace. However, all these ‘designer’ countries and institutions are silent on the Ukraine crisis today.

America calls itself the oldest democracy in the world, the United Nations talks about protecting the human rights of 800 million people of the world, NATO talks of peace and cooperation, the European Union describes itself as the champion of democracy, but what have all these countries and institutions done for Ukraine so far? These countries have imposed economic sanctions on Russia, which are of little significance. 

NATO’s great betrayal

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, NATO promised Russia that if it terminates the Warsaw Pact, NATO, at any time in the future, will not include those countries of Eastern Europe in its military organization which were previously part of the Soviet Union.

What’s Warsaw Pact?

The Warsaw Pact, like NATO, was a military alliance of the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. Russia ended this pact after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 in the hope that NATO would also fulfill its promise, but NATO did not fulfill its promise. Rather, it included countries like Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Romania as a member of NATO, which were once part of the Soviet Union under the Warsaw Pact. Thus, NATO has only betrayed till date and these are the reasons at the root of the war that is taking place between Ukraine and Russia today.

Similarly, in the year 2003, NATO promised Georgia that it would become its member in the future. NATO did not walk the talk, and relations between Russia and Georgia worsened, leading to a war in 2008. 

Now Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky can also be seen disenchanted with NATO countries and today he openly complained that these nations made big promises, but did not come to his country’s help. 

Like NATO, designer countries like the US and the UK also mislead the world in the name of democracy and peace. But whenever such conflicts have taken place, these countries have done nothing but turn their backs.

If Ukraine had taken the right decision at the time of the Budapest Memorandum and not destroyed its nuclear weapons at the behest of America and Britain, then perhaps the current situation of war would have been different and Ukraine would have been able to confidently defend itself.