Yuriy Shulipa: A destroyer of Russian Federation and NATO ships in the Black Sea: what does it mean?

But, Yuriy Shulipa, a lawyer, the head of “Institute for National Policy” International Union, sees in the presence of NATO ships three components at once: defense of the Alliance countries, Russia’s containment and possible involvement in the protection of Ukraine.

“The presence of NATO warships in the Black Sea has triple value. First of all, their presence is determined by the protection of NATO countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, which are situated at the Black Sea coast, if the escalation of Russian military aggression would cause a real threat to these countries. Secondly, for Russia, their presence has a restraining factor. Thirdly, if Russia starts a military invasion to the territory of the Kherson region in order to occupy the territory around the North-Crimean canal to restore the water supply to the temporarily occupied Crimea, it is possible that NATO warships can be used to reflect Russia’s military aggression on the Ukrainian side”, Shulipa considers.

Yuriy Shulipa believes that the destroyer has arrived to strengthen the occupying forces and, most likely, to make new provocations. However, the expert believes that the attack will be postponed until the end of the election in Ukraine since the Kremlin is counting on the victory of the pro-Russian forces.

“Russian destroyer arrived to strengthen the group of Russian occupation troops in the Azov and Black Seas. From December 5 to December 29, 2018, Russian war advocates actively discussed the attack of Ukrainian troops on the temporarily occupied by Russia Donbas, and then Crimea. This is a very bad sign which means, that provocations are being prepared by Russia in order to justify an attack on the free territories of Ukraine. However, this Russian attack was postponed at least until the end of the elections in Ukraine”, Yuriy Shulipa emphasized.

Text by Dmytro Zhuravel 

Mode of access: Opinion