US, NATO acts in Ukraine to lead to escalation: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Richard Becker, a member of the ANSWER Coalition in San Francisco, to discuss the recent clashes between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia forces in the troubled eastern parts of Ukraine.

A rough transcription of the interview appears below.

Press TV: Now it seems that when it comes to Ukraine specifically the east, the ceasefire is just barely holding if that is what you would like to call it. What do you make of this current re-eruption of violence?

Becker: Well I do not think that it is coincidental that it happened at the same time as the NATO summit is taking place in Warsaw. Poland and the NATO summit was the scene of more really warlike rhetoric against Russia and at the same time depicting Russia as the responsible, as the aggressor, as responsible for what is happening in the Eastern Ukraine and the New York Times for instance this morning in their story about the NATO summit said that President Obama has tried to be friendly with Russia but Russia has proved to be an implacable adversary.

Well this is straight State Department propaganda to put it that way. It was the very aggressive moves of the United States that brought about or at least heavily contributed to the overthrow in a coup of the Ukrainian government in February of 2014 that the United States and some of its NATO allies were moving to bring Ukraine not only into the European Union but into NATO as well which would have meant that NATO’s and US nuclear missiles could be right on the border of Russia, minutes away if they were launched from the major cities of Russia and they would have tried to take over the Crimea naval base and turn it into a NATO base.

This is pure aggression on the part of the United States, of Nuland and McCain and President Obama himself, and so we have that taking place and then we have this outbreak of fighting.

Press TV: So basically what you are saying is that peace in Eastern Ukraine will be sacrificed for the sake of NATO’s expansionist policies?

Becker: That is exactly what I am saying and I do not think there is any peaceful intention there. I believe that what happened in 2014 was the participation, the active intervention of the United States in the form of Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland, the assistance Secretary of State for Eurasian and European affairs turned out to be an overreach as often happens, an overreach meaning that they went further than they were really prepared to go in a supportive way and it backfired to a certain extent on them that Russia asserted its right to have the naval base in Crimea which has had for very long time that there was a referendum in Crimea, Crimea left Ukraine and rejoined Russia which had been a part of for hundreds of years and fighting broke out.

I think that this is a very dangerous situation. We have to remember that we are talking about the two leading nuclear weapon states in the world.

Press TV: And before I let you go, touching on that point that you just made at the end there, do you think that the West is miscalculating strategically when it comes to countering Russia this way or facing up to Russia this way in a post-Soviet Union era?

Becker: Well I think that it is a very dangerous overreach but it is one that they are pursuing. President Obama in his speech yesterday in Warsaw said there was going to be the biggest build-up of collective “defense” since the end of the Cold War meaning that they intend to further militarize the situation in Eastern Europe following the operation and the kind of these massive war games that were just held, very provocative actions, very dangerous actions and ones which could lead to an escalation with not anyone being able to tell where that will end.

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