NATO member Turkey and its Black Sea ally Ukraine have agreed to coproduce Turkish-made military drones at a production site in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Defence Minister Olesii Reznikov has recently made public the bilateral agreement between Turkey and Ukraine in the military defence industry.
In recent months tensions between Russia and NATO have reached a critical point as Russia has mobilised more than one hundred thousand troops along Ukraine’s border. Russia wants to coerce NATO to meet its demands by mobilising these troops. One of these demands holds that NATO will not expand further and halt all new membership plans, including Ukraine. In addition, Russia wants NATO to reduce its military presence in countries close to Russia’s borders, essentially returning NATO forces to where they were stationed before 1997 (Roth, 2021). Moscow states they are not planning any invasion. However, they argue that if their security demands are not met, their next step might be a military one (Kirby, 2022). The U.S. government expects that a Russian incursion into Ukraine could lead to the deaths of roughly 50.000 civilians and cause a refugee crisis in Europe (Cooper and Sanger, 2022).
Russia has raised the alarm in Ukraine and throughout the international community in recent days by massing its armed forces close to the Ukrainian border. The military build-up has raised fears of a possible Russian offensive that could push beyond the areas of eastern Ukraine currently under Kremlin control and lead to a dramatic escalation in the violent seven-year conflict between the two countries.
On 16 November, Swedish Minister of Defence Peter Hultqvist made a statement regarding the further possibility of Swedish land force involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. This comes as a potential continuation of the Canadian Armed Forces-led operation UNIFIER. Formed as a wider Multinational Joint Commission, a larger body composed of the US, UK, Canada, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, and Denmark, it aims to reform Ukraine's military. So far this reform process has involved the training of 10,000 Ukrainian land force troops.
Since at least 1996, the Ukrainian military has been engaged in gradual shifts away from external influences in technological innovation. The military structure in Ukraine has grown more and more independent from external actors, particularly regarding soft power deals with Russia and the relation between the two powers.
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