To be honest, I love Norway. I like this country not only because of its unique geography. Beyond this, I highly appreciate the values given to the world by Norway, including the Nobel Peace Prize and the peace negotiations in Oslo between Israel and the Palestine Authority in 1993. Still, I am not convinced that recent ’talks’ of European and American politicians with the representatives of the Taliban will eventually be listed among glorious chapters of Norwegian wisdom, but the Netflix series ’The Girl from Oslo’, a co-production of Norway and Israel again convinced me that the Norwegians are gifted by God to create values. And recently, when I reviewed the comments of various foreign politicians about the situation in Ukraine and the possibility of a Russian invasion, it was once again the words of the Norwegian PM which gave me the idea for publication. Asked what he thinks Putin’s ’game plan’ is, he replied, ’he wants to leave us guessing’. He was quite right! Putin is playing the Russian guessing game, i.e. creating uncertainty — this is his ’trademark’.
According to the news, Ukrainian intelligence has moved sensitive files and equipment out of its HQs in Kyiv to safe locations in the west of Ukraine. (In case it is reliable information, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattya and Lviv can be immediately ruled out, due to the national security threats Kyiv attributes to Romania, Hungary and Poland. Thus, most likely, the only safe place where the files could have been taken out is Ivano-Frankivsk, the ’safe heaven’ of national extremists in Western Ukraine. If this news is fake (and I am sure it is), the intelligence files remained in the capital.
Under the current conditions, the views of President Zelenskiy and his closest political advisers on the security are based on the intelligence available to the Ukrainian intelligence services. The President’s decisions are also based on the intelligence gathered by the Ukrainian special services. In addition, the U.S. and other countries pass some of their own intelligence information to Ukraine but President Zelenskiy seems not to be persuaded by these foreign intel data, he is not convinced that the intelligence that Western countries have shared with him confirms their assessment. Ukraine’s leadership believes the White House is hyping the threat of an invasion for political reasons. Officials in Kyiv (including Zelenskiy and his team) also cannot rule out that Russia might invade, but they are convicted that a Russian strike is not imminent. As it was expressed by minister of defence Olexander Reznikov, ’the data of Kiev and the intelligence services of other countries on the number of Russian troops at the borders coincide, but the assessment of these data differs.’
Ukraine’s political life is fractured, similarly to the intelligence community — it is trivial but still true. Some representatives of the Ukrainian national security establishment is convicted that a Russian strike is imminent, while others from the same community disagree.
As noted above, the Presidents’s views are primarily based on Ukrainian intelligence information. But can the President fully trust the loyalty of the intelligence elite? If I were him I would not do that. And, paradoxically, if I were the Ukrainian intelligence elite, I would not trust either the President, or his closest friend from LLC Kvartal-95 Bakanin, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Interestingly, the President forms his views on a possible Russian strike on the basis of information he received from those circles of the intel community which is not so afraid of the Russians…
Other military groups’ and intel circles’s position fundamentally differs from it and their standpoint is manifested in many external signs, which refer to the fact that the country is obviously preparing for war, including Ukraine is receiving shipments of arms and military equipment and other forms of military assistance from allies.
As part of military assistance, one country sends anti-missile systems, other states provide cyber support. Some capitals are cautiously promise just some moral backing. And now about Germany… Berlin refuses to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. Instead of delivering modern German weapons, they promised to send 5 thousand military helmets to Ukraine. Military aid in the form of helmets? I hardly find the words to comment this. Germany thought out a very cruel joke to express to express ’respect’ for Ukraine. I believe that these helmets symbolize not only the betrayal of Germany but illustrate most of all the wedges between Ukraine and the West.
As for the wedges between Ukraine and the international community, it should be noted that political disagreements between Kyiv and its ally Washington obviously deepened after Zelensky criticized the decision of the U.S. to evacuate the families of diplomats from Ukraine. It is reported that the telephone conversation of Ze with Biden turned out to be a disaster! Despite the fact that Zelenskiy later stressed that they had no misunderstandings with the U.S. president, controversial news leaked out, saying the presidents argued about the threat of a Russian attack and that the U.S. believes that Kiev is under-estimating the Russian threat. (Obviously, the downplaying of the threat is fully consistent with Russian intentions and is the result of sophisticated intelligence operations carried out by special services of the Russian Federation.)
Returning to our starting point, I want to once again direct attention to what the essence of actions with Putin’s trademark is. It is only the Kremlin’s Grand Master of Political Intrigue who benefits from creating uncertainty in Ukraine, spreading confusing intelligence data and getting international relations tangled up. By increasing the tension of threat of war (providing such options like peace, war or a frozen conflict, now, later or never ever, etc.) he has already got the most influential political leaders to pay official visits to Moscow, not to mention Germany’s joke with the helmets which, along with the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline, Angela Merkel left a legacy not only to Ukraine, but to the whole EU.
And finally, let’s see how clever Norway acts in such a situation. It sends more troops to the Eastern Flank of NATO. As indicated earlier, I am convinced, Norwegians have an innate gift to create values and make good decisions. That’s why Norway’s decision on reinforcements is worth attention. While Ukraine’s President does not even want to pronounce the ’w’ word, saying he wants to avoid public panic, wise Norway gathers some more soldiers preparing for worst-case scenarios. Advisors from Norway to the Office of the President of Ukraine are urgently required!
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