As Russian forces attack Ukraine by air and land, Western attention is quickly turning to President Vladimir Putin’s longer-term goals.

Putin plans to move allied North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces away from far eastern Europe and set the military clock back to the 1990s, before NATO took over. extends to former Soviet Baltic republics and satellite countries. He also clearly wants to neutralize NATO members Poland, Romania and Bulgaria and end the potential NATO membership of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland.

As possible threats to its flanks loom, NATO has decided to bolster its forces by moving thousands of American troops to the alliance’s eastern border and has drawn up plans for a repositioning of other forces to make facing potential danger along the borders of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia itself. “We are facing a new normal in our security,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

The accelerated planning comes as Russia has shattered any notion that the conquest of Ukrainian territory will be limited. Russian troops invaded from the east, north and south and Russian jets and missiles bombed military installations and its navy cut off the country from the Black Sea. The elimination of Ukraine as an independent state is underway.

Russia has moved newly arrived national guard units to the Ukrainian border which can be used to secure roads and conquer towns while combat troops mop up resistance elsewhere. “Russia doesn’t believe Ukraine should exist,” said Scott Lucas, a foreign policy professor at the University of Birmingham in the UK.

The United States and the European Union announced new economic sanctions against the Russian economy, limits on Russian banks’ access to international financing, bans on the export of technologies and asset freezes of Russian officials in Europe.

“Russia bears full responsibility as it attempts to rewrite history. Russia has closed the door to a political solution,” Stoltenberg said. He added that NATO had activated plans to allow NATO ground commanders to move troops and equipment to where they needed them at will.

An important friend may give Putin the confidence that he can prevail and survive Western punishment: China. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying declined to describe Russia’s actions as an invasion. “China didn’t want to see what happened in Ukraine today,” Hua said.

She took a swipe at Washington instead. “As for the American hints that Russia had China backing it, I’m sure Russia would be happy to hear that,” Hua said. “We will not be like America and supply Ukraine with a large amount of military equipment. Russia, as a powerful nation, also does not need China or other countries to provide (help).”

The ferocity of Russia’s assault has matched Putin’s verbal outbursts in recent days. Overnight, he warned in apocalyptic terms that foreign powers must not interfere with the invasion.

“Anyone who tries to hinder us, let alone create threats to our country and its people, should know that the Russian response will be immediate and will lead to consequences that you have never seen in history,” said Putin, a statement that some interpret as a nuclear threat. threat of retaliation.

NATO officials and Western analysts have pointed out that this crisis is the tip of the spear of Russia’s long campaign under Putin to restore the country’s place of anti-Western influence in the world. Many of the efforts have been underway for a long time and should continue.

In Europe, the effort includes calls for Slavic brotherhood in Bosnia, where Putin supports Bosnian Serb citizens to secede and join neighboring Serbia, once the heartland of communist Yugoslavia. Serbia is not yet biting to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine; he still harbors hopes of one day joining the EU.

Belarus, already under Western sanctions for the crackdown on protesters and indebted to Russia for its economic and political support, hosted part of Putin’s invasion force.

In the Middle East, Putin helped Syria harass Islamist rebels and, as a reward, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad let Russia renovate a major naval base in the Mediterranean Sea that it had used since the Cold War.

In Libya, Russian mercenaries operated by the private Wagner Group are supporting anti-government rebels based in the east of the country.

The Wagner Group and other front organizations for Russian interventions engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations on behalf of multiple governments. These are “not constrained by human rights responsibilities, unlike the United States, allowing African governments to be as brutal in their military efforts as they wish,” a report said. of the Brookings Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Russia is paid for services with contracts for natural resources, commercial contracts or access to strategic locations, such as airbases and ports, Brookings said.

The Wagner Group was formed by a former Russian special forces officer who took part in the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine that culminated in the annexation of Crimea and the creation of rebel provinces in eastern Ukraine. ‘Ukraine.

He operated not only in Syria and Libya, but also in Yemen, Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mali and the Central African Republic. In January, crowds waved Russian flags in Burkina Faso after a military coup backed by the Wagner Group that pledged to crack down on Muslim jihadists.

A statue unveiled last year in the Central African Republic shows local soldiers, backed by Russian mercenary fighters, protecting civilians from marauding rebels.

Meanwhile, in a throwback to the Cold War, Russia has reopened close relations with Cuba after a long hiatus. Putin is delaying repayment of $2.3 billion in loans Havana owes until 2027 to ease the burden on the cash-strapped island nation.

Cuba responded by supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A Russian defense official met with representatives from Venezuela, Nicaragua as well as Cuba in Caracas last week to discuss military cooperation.

It is difficult to determine when Putin gave up on peaceful relations with the West, if he ever harbored such hopes. However, Putin has frequently alluded to such a moment: when NATO bombed Serbian forces in separatist Kosovo and targets inside Serbia itself.

In a press conference with German leader Olaf Scholz, Putin railed against Western involvement there, leaving aside the then president’s expulsion of Kosovar Muslims from the territory. Slobodan Milosevic.

The NATO intervention paved the way for the Kosovo Liberation Army to take over Kosovo and expel hundreds of thousands of Serbs from the province, an event that drew no Western condemnation. If this is a key source of Putin’s resentment, he is now venting his rage on Ukraine.