NATO’s Ukraine proxy war seeks to weaken Russia and topple Putin. To launch an economic, information and ground war, NATO needed Russia to invade. Now it needs Russia to attack a NATO nation to justify direct war. Sat. 8pm EDT.
Guests: Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter. Host: Joe Lauria. Producer: Cathy Vogan.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Is NATO provoking a direct war with Russia?
In 2022, the U.S. got Russia to invade so Washington attempt to destroy Russia’s economy with sanctions, orchestrate worldwide condemnation in an information war and lead a proxy ground war to bleed Russia — all part of an attempt to bring down its government.
In case there’s any doubt that this is the goal, recall what President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government said right after Russia’s intervention.
On invasion day, Biden said, “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening. … This is going to take time. And we have to show resolve so he [Putin] knows what’s coming and so the people of Russia know what he’s brought on them. That’s what this is all about.”
On March 1, [2022] Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said the sanctions on Russia “we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime.”
A month later Biden confirmed that the purpose of the draconian U.S. sanctions on Russia was never to prevent the invasion of Ukraine, which the U.S. needed to activate its plans, but to punish Russia, get its people to rise up against Putin and ultimately to restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow.
“Let’s get something straight,” Biden said. “I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. … The maintenance of sanctions, the increasing the pain … we will sustain what we’re doing not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. That’s what will stop him.” Of course it’s taken NATO more than a year but they haven’t given up.
The United States could have easily stopped Russia’s intervention in Ukraine’s civil war from happening by doing four things: forcing implementation of the 8-year old Minsk peace accords; dissolving extreme right Ukrainian militias; ending talk of Ukraine joining NATO and engaging Russia in serious negotiations over Moscow’s proposed December 2021 treaties about a new security architecture in Europe. Russia threatened a “technical/military” response if NATO and the U.S. did not take those two treaty proposals seriously.
So the U.S. knew Russia would invade if it rejected those proposals, which called for Ukraine not to join NATO, for missiles in Poland and Romania to be removed and NATO troops in Eastern Europe withdrawn. Instead, the U.S. refused to move the missiles and provocatively sent even more NATO forces to Eastern Europe, knowing full well it would lead to war. Washington was not sincere about preventing Russia’s invasion.
Instead the U.S. set a trap for Russia. Using the precedents of the Afghan trap set for the Soviets in 1979 and the Kuwait trap set for Saddam Hussein in 1990, the U.S. forced Russia’s hand by rejecting the treaty proposals and amassed 60,000 Ukrainian troops for an offensive against ethnic Russians in Donbass. Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
On March 16, 2022 — the same day it was revealed Russia and Ukraine had worked out a 15-point peace plan that later resulted in a tentative agreement to end the war — Biden announced another $800 million in military aid for Ukraine. As we now know, Emmanuel Macron tricked Putin into withdrawing his troops from outside Kiev to make that agreement work, only for Boris Johnson to intervene to stop the deal once the troops had been removed.
Having lost on the ground in Donbass over the subsequent four years, NATO has turned to an air war, hitting targets deep inside Russia with NATO-operated, long-range missiles and swarms of drones fired from Ukrainian territory. These attacks have damaged Russia’s oil exports and killed civilians. The most prominent provocation was last week in Donbass in which NATO and Ukraine slaughtered 21 Russian students in their sleep.
As our guest Scott Ritter pointed out, these attacks are designed to put internal political pressure on Putin. Either he acts more decisively, or risks his hold on power. Thus Russia has warned embassies in Kiev to evacuate their personnel as Moscow threatens to hit “decision-making centers” in the Ukrainian capital. There are also hardline demands on Putin to hit facilities in Germany and Britain that provided the munitions that murdered the students.
Until now Putin has studiously avoided direct war with NATO. But in the same way that NATO provoked Russia to invade in 2022, NATO now appears to be provoking Russia to strike a NATO country to start a direct war with the aim of a strategic defeat of Moscow.
Either way Europe thinks it may get what it wants. If Putin doesn’t act against Europe it could threaten his position at home. And if he does hit Europe it could be the casus belli Europe seeks for a direct NATO-Russia war. German and British generals tell their nations to be ready for conflict with Moscow by 2029.
Last week an errant drone — ostensibly Russian — hit a Romanian apartment building near the Ukrainian border. All hell broke loose with calls for an invocation of NATO’s Article 5. It could be a harbinger of what would come if Russia not only devastates Kiev, but conventionally attacks a NATO nation too.
The big questions are: How would Europe react if decision-making centers are wiped out in Kiev? How would the United States react if Russia hits a NATO country? Donald Trump is no fan of NATO, but would he succumb to pressure from Europe, Congress and his cabinet to directly attack Russia? Without the U.S., NATO could hardly act.
In provoking Moscow with increasingly effective strikes deep inside Russia, why are Britain and Germany — the NATO ringleaders — seemingly so confident that direct war with Russia would not turn nuclear?
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News.
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