Military-Political Threats in Connection with the Probable Military Escalation in the Central European Region

Abstract

The article analyzes the military-political threats to Ukrainian statehood in regard to political events in the Russian Federation and a possible military escalation in the Central European region. It is noted that the Russian Federation authorities used the same strategy of regional destabilization with subsequent massive military intervention. The authoritarian Kremlin regime can protect itself exclusively with aggressive external policy and, finding itself on the rubicon of the loss of power, may resort to sharp destabilizing steps including the onset of a full-scale war in Central Europe. The geopolitical processes consisting of the latest events in the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation are analyzed. It is stated that as a result of the Kremlin’s aggressive policy, the entire Central European region can be at risk of military escalation. Analysis of the military-political situation indicates that in 2021 a bold plan of the Russian Federation, similar to the aggression against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, may be implemented in the Central European region, the process probably initiated by the armed confrontation in Belarus provoked by the Kremlin’s secret services. NATO military analysts have been considering the possibility of Russian military aggression against the Baltic states since 2014, with the most vulnerable point being the Polish-Lithuanian border between Belarus and Kaliningrad region of Russia, the so-called Suwalki Gap. The same vulnerable area of potential instability and hostilities is the border between Belarus and Ukraine. Under the conditions of the occupation of Crimea and the continuation of the undeclared war in Donbas, the hypothetical aggression of the Russian Federation in the North-Western regions of Ukraine threatens the Ukrainian statehood itself. Such a critical strategic threat requires urgent preventive action.