US, NATO playing war games on Russia’s doorstep: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, with the Center for Research on Globalization in Montreal, about NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg calling on Moscow to stop “supporting” pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Do you think it is in the NATO Secretary General’s place to warn Russia against the situation in eastern Ukraine?

Chossudovsky: I think NATO has the ability of turning the realities upside down, because recent reports confirm that it is not Russia which is supporting the rebels but NATO and the United States are supporting Ukraine not only with so-called nonlethal weapons but also with military advisers, training and so on, and that in fact they are now providing core support not only to the armed forces but also to the neo-Nazi National Guard and in fact the US Congress debated this issue and they said yes, we will support the National Guard but we will not support the Azov battalion.

Other countries such as Canada are supporting the Azov battalion, but I should say that in effect while the Azov battalion has been recognized as a neo-Nazi entity, the Right Sector Nazi party has an oversight and control over the entire National Guard. And in recent developments, Ukraine military has been bombing civilian areas including schools. There is ample documents to that effect, and ironically NATO is accusing the separatist forces of Donbass of killing their own people, so to speak, when in fact those strikes were perpetrated by Ukraine armed forces. 

Press TV: Basically you are saying that the US and NATO have set the grounds to ensure this grace period that there is of relative calm in eastern Ukraine is used to basically once again increase hostilities and ensure that there is no separatist movement left within eastern Ukraine. However, my question to you is what does NATO get out of it?

Chossudovsky: I think we have to look at the broader military agenda, because NATO - and when we say NATO we are saying the United States - the United States and NATO are involved in war games on Russia’s doorstep. They have several initiatives, they are moving military hardware to Eastern Europe, and this serves as an act of provocation directed against the Russian Federation, and they accuse Russia without evidence of supporting the rebels when in fact they have their own troops right on Russia’s doorstep supporting the Ukrainian government, which is an illegitimate government. And I think there is another element which has not been understood or even reported in the media, is that the president of Ukraine, President Poroshenko, has made the statement and it is with Ukraine Constitutional Court that the coup directed against his predecessor Yanukovych was an illegal act and not a democratic transition.

So within Ukraine there is a leadership, there is division within the leadership. The country is in extreme crisis following the imposition of the IMF deadly microeconomic reforms and the impoverishment of large sectors of the population and within the armed forces there are also divisions and there is also a movement at the grassroots to refuse to fight, in other words not to join the armed forces, not to be involved in a civil war in eastern Ukraine.   

Press TV: So if Russia is the big enemy here, what do you make of that though? Is Russia a threat to the West - militarily or strategically speaking?

Chossudovsky: I think that Moscow is not a threat and neither is Beijing and what the United States is engaged upon is a very dangerous path, because they have adopted the doctrine of preemptive war and they are in fact also saying that they can use nuclear weapons against Russia on a preemptive basis.

Now that type of discourse is extremely dangerous, because it could in fact ignite a World War III scenario. First of all, when they say that the new generation of nuclear weapons, tactical nuclear weapons, are harmless to civilians and can be used against non-nuclear states, and that they are also threatening Russia with nuclear weapons, and this is very clear, it has been debated in the US Congress, we are at a very dangerous crossroads in our history - the unthinkable, possible World War III scenario. And this is no longer at the level of [hypothesis], it has been envisaged by decision makers in the Pentagon and it could unleash World War III.

AHK/HSN

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