American diplomat: Putin wants to conquer Hungary
W. Robert Pearson, a former US ambassador to Turkey, published an unsettling article on Russian President Putin’s alleged goals concerning the Eastern-European region. He claims that Putin wants to restore the former glory of Russia. Therefore, he wants to “claw back for his imperial Russia: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, with Moldova leaning West, non-NATO and yet on Putin’s list.”
Hungary on Putin’s list?
Mr Pearson shared his opinion on the relevant issue on thehill.com. According to Wikipedia, in 2020, this site was the largest independent political news portal in the United States. Pearson serves as the president of American Diplomacy Publishers Inc. Moreover, he is a scholar at the Middle East Institute and a fellow at Duke University Center for International and Global Studies/Rethinking Diplomacy. He served twice at NATO during the end of the Cold War, at the time of Germany’s reunification, and he was also responsible for accepting new members of the Alliance.
The former US ambassador to Turkey is an opinion contributor, and he shared some paragraphs on the news website regarding Putin’s ultimate goals concerning Eastern Europe.
His title is thought-provoking: NATO must decide European security beyond the Ukraine war.
It asserts that the military block has more tasks on the European “front” than supplying Ukraine with the necessary weapons, intelligence and information to make Kyiv able to withstand Russian aggression.
Putin to reestablish the Iron Curtain?
Pearson writes that international media did not notice Turkish President Erdogan’s chief advisor and spokesman’s March 17 statement: “after this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc.” He quotes Thomas Bagger, a senior German diplomat, who said that Putin was thinking in categories of a 1,000-year empire. “You cannot deter someone like that with sanctions.”
“NATO frontline states form a concave arc across the heart of Europe from the Baltic approaches to St. Petersburg to the mouth of the Danube. That is the territory Putin intends to claw back for his imperial Russia: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, with Moldova leaning West, non-NATO and yet on Putin’s list” –
the US diplomat writes.
Without security, there will be no prosperous economy
He argues that Putin will bolster Russia’s military presence as far west as possible. He will try to intimidate the Baltic states, Poland and Germany. Furthermore, Putin will try to drag Minsk as close as possible. Moreover, he will try to make Russia’s military presence in Belarus semi-permanent, like in Syria and Kazakhstan. Pearson says that demanding the non-NATO Ukraine is just the first step. “One of the clearest lessons of modern European history is that leaders of democracies should believe what dictators and autocrats say they plan to do” – the former US ambassador to Turkey claims.
Sanctions will not be successful for NATO or the USA if Russia does not retreat from Ukraine. Otherwise, there will only be a new frozen conflict. Pearson says that Europe cannot be free and economically prosperous without the security of its member states.
This is not the first time an ambassador suggests that Hungary is on Putin’s list. Lyubov Nepop, the Ukrainian ambassador to Hungary, said in late March that Hungary was the next target of the Russian president – 168 óra reported.
Source: thehill.com, 168 óra