 Tensions continue on the Ukraine-Russia border, and this is the second week we are talking about it considering the amount of discussions that are taking place, considering the amount of allegations that are being thrown around warnings of war and conflict at a very difficult time across the world. Of course, on the one hand, the president of Ukraine has met the head of NATO. He sought security assurances. He even asked for military support, which was not promised. On the other hand, Russia has made certain categorical demands of the United States and its NATO partners. We will be talking about all this in Mapping Fault Lines. We are joined by Prabir Pulkai, sir. Prabir, a lot of dramatic developments taking place over the past few days. On the one hand, the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, met Jens Tottenberg, the head of NATO. He asked for military support, while that was not promised, nonetheless NATO has come out with a very strong statement in support of Ukraine. On the other hand, we will come to Russia a bit later, but how do you first see this meeting and the kind of demands Ukraine is making and what NATO is offering? That is an interesting issue, because if you saw, we had a Biden-Putin so-called sub-it that took place. That this seems to indicate nothing was resolved in that. That situation is what would be called status quo ante, and the tensions continue to mount up. Now, these are all nuclear powers, and NATO is a nuclear-armed military alliance. Of course, it has three nuclear powers, but the United States is the key player over there. Now, Russia's attempt to get back to the Minsk Accords has been more or less disregarded. Neither Germany nor France, who are supposed to be the guarantors of the Minsk Accord, has really come out saying anything about it, nor has it been accepted that that's the basis of discussion what the state of Donbas should be as an autonomous region within Ukraine, but still nevertheless with a lot of local autonomy, that discussion hasn't taken place. So the question which Russia has posed earlier, does it mean that the NATO is going to support the Ukraine-Central government marching into Donbas and then precipitating a military attack on Donbas and possible Russian intervention, therefore still on the table? So I think that is the key issue on which we have no clarity, that are there any guarantees that this will not happen? Is NATO trying to tell Ukraine, no, you need to really sit and resolve your internal problems? Not only they haven't said this, but they've also said that Ukraine and Georgia both will become full NATO partners within the NATO alliance, and this will depend only on the 30 countries, there is no question of Russia having any voice about it. Now I know if we go back to the 1960s, 62, you'll remember this was the Cuban Missile Crisis, of course it was true that Cuba as an independent country full right over what it puts on its soil had asked Russia, Soviet Union at that stage to put in nuclear batteries, nuclear missiles, that led to a near world war situation. So theoretically it is correct to say they have the full right to put missiles on its borders, but if NATO marches to Russian borders, puts in missiles, missile batteries as it has already done in the Baltics in a couple of other places, Romania and Poland, then doesn't it make Russia's position relatively more insecure? And having taken or walked out of the Intermediate Range Treaty, the ballistic missile treaty, that nuclear weapons, intermediate range nuclear weapons will not be positioned in Europe, we are back to both the intermediate range nuclear missiles being now on land and being on Russia's borders. So we now get also a certain meaning to Trump's pulling out of the intermediate range missile treaty, which is not what was thought that Biden would follow, but we thought that he would come back to the nuclear treaties. So that doesn't seem to have happened and then we have more or less the NATO chief saying we have the right to position our military, we have the right to position our forces right in Russia's borders, including missiles, including nuclear missiles and that is really tough talk. So will that be with that something that Russia will accept? And that's where it has said it has red lines. So I think we are poised and I don't think the world realizes that wars take place not because parties want it, but because parties put down positions that they don't want to resile from. And because of that it can spin off into a war which nobody wanted. In this case unfortunately a world war can happen with nuclear weapons states in the fray just because the Ukrainian government can has the possibility of doing adventurous actions. And this reminds me as I said a start of the first world war nobody wanted it. The military powers which went into the war didn't want it. It took place because of certain actions which was would have been considered peripheral otherwise, but given the fact that countries are toe-to-toe nose-to-nose in a confrontation, a small little action incident can lead to a war. And as I said in this case, talking about putting intermediate range ballistic missile, talking about NATO's unfettered right to come up to Russia's borders, these are all positions which are really not simply walking back to what we call the an eastward march of NATO, but really something much more aggressive. And I think that is something we need to register that we are talking about intermediate range ballistic missiles or the borders of Russia. These are the basic red line that Russia is now talking about that they will not accept. And what is NATO's response to say we have the right to do it. I think the fact that they have not promised troops but they have put in advisors and other people on the ground over there creates a scenario which is unstable and we do not know what the likely dimension of this are going to be. Right and in this context of course Russia has made some interesting demands as well. One of the key demands being the fact that NATO you know should not for instance incorporate Georgia and Ukraine which NATO has promised and Stoltenberg has I think reiterated that and also that it not conduct operations in the former eastern bloc countries. So in some senses Russia is asking for a return to a few decades ago to a promise which was made during the fall of the Soviet Union around that time and we see that on the other hand the west is in no mood to accept it at all. I don't think I would say they want that position to go back to what was the promise that no not an inch further from Germany. I don't think they're asking for that. They are saying that you are conducting military exercises right on our borders. This is a NATO NATO set of NATO exercises you've taken place in the last few years in the territory of the Baltic States in Romania Poland etc etc and if these exercises takes place normally this could be a fate to a real attack is the argument that would be made on the other side. There's no difference between an exercises and a preparation to invasion as far as the other side can see again nuclear powers on both sides. The second is that there are increasing cases and again there is a lot of US documents on this count that both in terms of the Black Sea naval movement in the Black Sea coming very close to what would be called Russian territory by Russia would be called captured by Russia but Ukrainian territory by US and other powers. What we are seeing is vessels military vessels coming very close to all of this and that is also again in the current condition really a possibility of a small incident leading to a clash and again with consequences which are completely unknown. So you are seeing also these kind of things also happening in air that there are again this is what Russia is pointing out air patrols which are coming very close to Russian airspace and this is a continuous development that has been taking place so the need to at least bring down the temperature would mean that regulate all of this okay we'll warn you beforehand we will do this and not more than that this continuous pressure of air sorties and vessels coming in along with military exercises and the threat of putting intermediate range ballistic missiles on the borders as missile batteries I think these all put together is what Russia has taken up. Of course when you start a discussion you make a maximalist claim so that I think is what's happening but what is interesting is that nothing has moved we have had rounds of discussion between various US and Russian officials we have had a so-called to submit between the two and yet we see on the ground nothing seems to have changed and that's a very ominous sign that we don't seem to see from the brinkmanship any stepping back and the fact that Russia has now put some certain lines red lines as it is called I think makes it even more difficult because now for getting Russia to back off is also going to be difficult so I think the unfortunately what was the situation before all of these red lines and this rhetoric is that it was possibly the Biden Putin meeting where they could have sorted some of this out and even Biden announced there are groups which will be set up which will discuss these issues instead of that all this warlike noises starting with of course the again the renewal of the Cold War the democracy summit and then what we see Stoltenberg it could not have been done without signal from President Biden so all of this would seem to indicate we have not we are still in the same scenario we were before the summit in fact we could be argued things have gotten a little worse and finally probably very quickly is there a possibility for the European countries who might actually suffer some of the worst sufferers in case case war breaks out taking maybe a slightly different line from the US or are their interests so closely connected with NATO that there is no differentiation at all well you know the European Union as you said is not only going to suffer they are the frontline of any war that takes place if it destroys both Russia it will also destroy parts of European Union so I don't see why they should be towing completely the United States line it's also interesting that if you take for instance the United Nations General Assembly there was a resolution which was passed against Nazism glorification of Nazism it was opposed by two countries Ukraine and the United States that the US has been doing since 2005 so we're not so surprised about it but a lot of the US allies in Europe here in European Union who fought on the Soviet Union side against Nazism have also sided by abstention they have not voted with the glorification of Nazism being condemned but they have also abstained so this is the unfortunate position that the European Union and the NATO countries of Europe are that they don't know that how to play an independent role in all of this though if there is a battle it's going to be fought in Europe and if you remember that was the reason that the intermediate range ballistic missile iRBM treaty was was basically in the European countries interest not to have a war with nuclear weapons on its soil and the fact that the US has walked out of it was something they had opposed but at the moment while having made all this noises at that point of time they don't seem to be in a taking any independent position to de-escalate and I think Angela Merkel not being there is also weakening the European diplomacy somewhat and the fact that the you the European Union's economic stake in the Nord Stream not getting into this kind of a military confrontation with Russia this is something that I don't really understand what is the understanding European Union has of its position and at the moment if they follow on the course which United States seems to be wanting to it will be in European Union will be economically far more dependent for energy on the United States for example and it will sander the economic ties of European nations with both Russia and China the Eurasian land mass coming together that is not in the interest of the United States but that's the interest of European nations so I don't know why this this policies are not being looked at to the lens but only being looked at through a quasi military lens thank you so much for being that's all we have time for today we'll be covering this issue in detail in the coming weeks as well until then keep watching news click