The potential NATO membership of Ukraine while it is at war with Russia, according to US Vice President Joe Biden, will probably lead to the outbreak of a third World War.
Additionally, the United States has reportedly just delivered cluster munitions, which are prohibited internationally, to Ukraine.
In a joint press conference on Thursday with the president of Finland, Sauli Niinisto, Biden stated, “No one can join NATO while a war is going on, because that guarantees that we are in a war, a Third World War.”
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NATO’s Article 5 states that an attack on one member is an attack on all members, which means that if Ukraine joins the alliance while it is already at war with Russia, all NATO members must also engage in a full-fledged and direct conflict with Russia, which is not what the alliance currently intends.
When informed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would gain confidence if Ukraine could not join NATO right away, Biden responded that he did not believe the conflict would last for years because Russia cannot sustain its resources for that long.
Furthermore, Biden played down worries that Putin might use nuclear weapons after a brief mutiny by the Wagner private military group.
Putin using nuclear weapons is not a realistic possibility, but you never know. Don’t go there is a message that has come from the West, China, and the rest of the world.
Skip that place.
With 4,477 nuclear warheads in its deployed and reserve inventory, including about 1,900 tactical warheads, Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The change happened as Ukrainian authorities revealed they had received contentious cluster munitions from the US.
Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the Ukrainian army, told US broadcaster CNN on Thursday, “We just got them, we haven’t used them, but they can radically change (the battlefield).
The enemy is aware that we will have an advantage if we obtain this ammunition, he added. “The Russians believe we’ll use it across the entire front.
Very wrong, indeed.”
Despite a global ban on the use of the controversial weapons, the White House announced on Friday that the US would provide cluster munitions to Ukraine to aid in its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty that addresses the humanitarian ramifications and intolerable harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions through a categorical prohibition and a framework for action, forbids the use of cluster bombs.
Many bomblets can be contained in one weapon, which disperse over a large area and frequently kill and injure civilians. Because bomblets that have not yet detonated can endanger civilians for years after a battle has ended, CCMs are prohibited.
Submunitions released by cluster munitions can cover a five times larger area than those released by conventional bombs.
All use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster bombs are prohibited by the CCM, which went into effect in 2010. Although more than 100 nations have ratified the agreement, the US, Russia, and Ukraine have not.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, issued an order on February 24, 2022, to launch a “special military operation” in the former Soviet republic to “demilitarize” two eastern Ukrainian regions in response to Kyiv’s rising aspirations to join NATO, which Moscow regards as a redline.
As the war entered its eighth month in September 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky officially applied for a fast-track NATO membership and ruled out talks with Putin.
Moscow has repeatedly cautioned Ukraine against their requests to join NATO, describing the action as “pure destabilizing. “Russia has also cautioned the alliance against continuing its expansion toward its borders.
Since the start of the conflict, US media has frequently covered the weapon shipments sent by the US to strengthen Kyiv’s armed forces, along with tens of billions in military aid from other NATO members.
By the beginning of January, the US and its allies had given Ukraine over 100 million rounds of small arms ammunition, over a million rounds of artillery shells, and more than 100,000 rounds for tanks.
Russia views the Western invasion of Ukraine with weapons as a fruitless attempt to influence the course of the war. Moscow claims that giving Kyiv more weapons won’t do anything but prolong the fighting and cause more deaths and destruction.
