By Andrius Sytas
Nordic, Baltic and central European NATO members (click here) are committed to Ukrainian membership of the military alliance, the leaders of Poland, Romania and Lithuania said following a summit of the so-called B9 and Nordic countries on Monday.
NATO allies declared their support for Ukraine's "irreversible path" towards membership at last year's Washington summit. But President Donald Trump has since said that prior U.S. support for Ukraine's NATO bid was a cause of the war and has further indicated that Ukraine will not get membership....
There is a small area of land that borders Poland and Lithuania. It also is on the Baltic Sea. Belarus is an ally to Russia. There is a small border Poland and Lithuania share. The concern is the small border could be big trouble if Russia simply waltzes into that region with the goal to cut off Lithuania and Latvia from the rest of NATO.
It is a legitimate concern because that is exactly what Putin did to Ukraine. He removed the Ukraine sovereign military and simply stationed unidentified soldiers, probably from the Wagner Group at the time, in Ukraine's Crimea and then armed the Donetsk area. Due to Russia's position after that strategy against Ukraine there has been a war ever since. Russia had no right to attempt to take any Ukraine sovereign territory, but, since the national military was dismantled there was no fighting back at the time.
NATO has a presence in the area of the northeast border of Poland with Lithuania, but, there probably should be a permanent base and/or at least an outpost at that border with patrols to prevent problems.
