President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that it was Russia’s business whether or not it decided to use North Korean troops and said that if Ukraine wanted to join NATO then Moscow could do what it wanted to ensure its own security.
The United States said on Wednesday that it had seen evidence that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for possible deployment in Ukraine, a move that the West is casting as a significant escalation of the Ukraine war.
Ukraine’s military intelligence service said that the first North Korean units trained in Russia had been deployed in the Kursk region, a Russian border area where Ukrainian forces took a chunk of Russian land in August.
That’s probably why NATO doesn’t invite countries at war. What’s stopping Ukraine from invoking article 5 immediately?
Well, that’d be the point of Ukraine joining NATO currently.
NATO maintains that it is a defensive alliance. If NATO starts adding countries Russia is currently at war with, it becomes an offensive alliance.
That being said, why wasn’t Ukraine added earlier?
I don’t think so. Ukraine is in a defensive war. Actively joining their side doesn’t turn it into an offensive one. The difference between offensive and defensive conflicts is the goal: In an offensive, you want to gain something. In a defence, it is about keeping what you have. Just because NATO would come to their aid, Ukraine wouldn’t want to conquer Russia.
Multiple reasons probably:
Russia can stop being at war at any second, if it chooses to
Right, but if chooses too Ukraine will likely join NATO and Russia ends up with another NATO country against its land border.
The only reason they would withdraw is if they don’t have enough troops - which they are supplementing with North Korean troops. It’s against Russia’s geopolitical interest.
That and Putin is a crazy guy doing crazy things. Putin may not stop even if it IS in his best interests to do so