It’s certainly risky and not to be contemplated rashly. But what is the alternative?
The United States-led military bloc is a party to the conflict in Ukraine against Russia. In short, NATO is at war with Russia. So, why is Russia limiting its military targets to Ukrainian territory?
Moscow has said repeatedly that the proxy war in Ukraine between NATO and Russia has become increasingly evident from the United States and its allies pumping up to $100 billion of weaponry into the former Soviet republic. There can be no illusions about the situation.
NATO’s participation has become increasingly deeper and more concerted. Not so long ago, the U.S. was at pains to emphasize its military aid was “defensive only” and “non-lethal”. NATO member Germany was formerly ridiculed for limiting its equipment to “helmets”.
Now the United States and its allies are supplying longer-range rockets, Patriot anti-aircraft systems that could shoot down Russian fighter jets in Russian airspace, as well as delivering main battle tanks.
Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov boasted in an interview with the BBC that Ukraine has become a de facto member of NATO due to the panoply of weapons and military advisors it has received from the 28-nation organization.
Reznikov also recently said that Ukraine was serving on a NATO mission to defeat Russia.
The BBC reported: “As Poland and Britain revealed plans to deliver battle tanks for the first time, Mr Reznikov said he was sure Ukraine would receive tanks, fighting aircraft or jets, and long-range weaponry to hit targets in 300km (186 miles) as well, because ‘things were changing’ in Western countries.”
The British state-owned broadcaster added: “He dismissed concerns that the announcements could trigger a Russian response, despite now-familiar threats from Moscow.”
We have lamentably reached the stage where Russia’s warnings against NATO sending more weapons to Ukraine are being taken as empty or “now familiar” threats.
That means that despite the obvious escalation of conflict from NATO weapons sent to Ukraine and the evident danger of spiraling towards all-out war with Russia, the Western powers are doubling down on their madness.
Britain’s announcement last week that it would be the first NATO member to send Challenger main battle tanks was met with a furious warning from Russia against escalation. Western powers are only prolonging the war and suffering, increasing the risk of greater conflict between nuclear adversaries, and suppressing diplomatic alternatives, and yet these same Western powers continue to rack up more weapons and involvement.
Russia responded to the reports of tanks being sent to Ukraine with an intensification of air strikes across Ukraine last weekend. A missile apparently collapsed a nine-storey apartment block in Dnipro on January 14 with up to 40 civilians being killed. Russia denied that it was targeting residential buildings. There were reports of Ukrainian officials acknowledging that the strike may have been caused by its own air defenses. It wouldn’t be the first time that that has happened.
But the Western media were full of condemnatory headlines and television coverage of what was described as Russian barbarity. The media tone was reminiscent of the scenes in Syria where the NATO-backed propaganda so-called rescue group, the White Helmets, would portray air strikes as war crimes committed by the “evil Assad regime” and its Russian allies.
The propaganda war, otherwise known as corporate Western media reporting, is painting Russia as evil incarnate burying children under concrete blocks. This is what the Ukrainian defense minister alludes to when he said “things are changing in the West”.
Perversely, this war was instigated by the United States and its NATO allies with the regime-change coup in Kiev back in 2014 and the subsequent arming of NeoNazi paramilitaries killing ethnic Russians in the Donbass. The Kiev regime continues to kill civilians in the Donbass from deliberate shelling with NATO-supplied weapons. But the Western media don’t report this. They are too busy distorting Russia as a “barbarian ruled by a despotic Putin”.
Russia’s warnings against NATO’s deepening involvement have completely fallen on deaf ears or twisted into sinister Russian paranoia. The upshot is that the NATO weapons supply is increasing and becoming ever more offensive. That in turn is leading to tragic suffering and death as seen in the devastating apartment strike in Dnipro at the weekend.
But rather than taking a pause and realizing the moral imperative of halting conflict and exploring diplomacy, the arrogant Western powers are doing the opposite. They are piling more fuel into the fire regardless of the conflagration in store.
The ultimate perversity is that Russia’s warnings are being perceived as weakness. The restraint and patience shown by Russia in the face of years of NATO provocations and aggression are dismissed as signs that NATO should push even more to defeat Russia.
The Kiev regime, as its defense minister Reznikov boasts, is cockily expecting more tanks and even fighter jets from NATO. The war is sliding down a slope to full-frontal confrontation.
If Moscow does nothing except issue warnings to NATO that are ignored or derided, it seems inevitable that the NATO powers will continue to escalate.
Has the time come for Russia to use “military-technical measures” against NATO members? After all, Russia’s oil pipelines and bridges have been sabotaged by NATO, its economy sanctioned to the hilt by economic warfare. Russia surely has the right to self-defense. Hitting a bully in the face is the best way to deal with a bully.
It’s certainly risky and not to be contemplated rashly. But what is the alternative?
