The envoys to India of nine Eastern European countries jointly wrote an article to acquaint the Indian public with the basic facts on the ground about the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Who are the Bucharest Nine?
The “Bucharest Nine” is a group of nine NATO countries in Eastern Europe that became part of the US-led military alliance after the end of the Cold War.
They are referred as “countries on NATO’s eastern flank”.
The Bucharest Nine or Bucharest Format (B9) was founded in 2015, and takes its name from Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
The group was created on the initiative of Klaus Iohannis, who has been President of Romania since 2014, and Andrzej Duda, who became President of Poland in 2015.
The B9 offers a platform for deepening the dialogue and consultation among the participant allied states in compliance with the principles of solidarity and indivisibility of the security of the NATO Member States.
The B9 includes Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are former signatories of the now dissolved Warsaw Pact military alliance led by the USSR whereas Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were part of the former USSR.
All members of the B9 are part of the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
How is the relationship between B9 and Russia?
The B9 countries have been critical of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014, when the war in the Donbas started and Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
They criticised the military build-up by Russia in close neighbourhood, in the Black Sea, in and around Ukraine.
The U.S. President Biden expressed his support for enhancing NATO’s deterrence and defence posture, as well as the importance of Allies increasing their resilience against strategic competitors.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even appealed to the Bucharest Nine for defense aid, sanctions and to pressure on the aggressor.
