Step by step, the US and its NATO allies — Britain, France and other countries — are escalating the war in Ukraine. These very imperialist powers provoked Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine more than two years ago.
On May 28, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on the allied countries to remove all constraints on use of weapons supplied by them to Ukraine to target Russian territory. The US, Britain, France and Germany have publicly given the signal to Ukraine that it can use long range weapons supplied by them to target Russian territory.
France has announced it will donate Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Ukraine and deploy military trainers to train the Ukrainian pilots. Other NATO countries have committed to giving about 80 U.S.-made F-16 fighters to Ukraine. If these F16s are stationed in Ukraine, they will be easy targets on the ground for Russia to destroy. If they are flown from NATO countries bordering Russia, then those airfields could be targeted by Russia. This would trigger a NATO response under the mutual defence clause Article 5 — resulting in a direct war between NATO and Russia.
On May 29, French President Emmanuel Macron provocatively called for the bombing of Russia. According to news reports, Macron was talking of using nuclear weapons. Other leaders of NATO countries have called for dividing Russia into many small parts.
NATO has published plans for transporting troops across Western Europe in case of a war with Russia. Nearly three lakh NATO troops are stationed in combat readiness in NATO countries bordering Russia.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has launched a drone attack on the most sensitive Russian nuclear Early Warning System at Armavir. The drones were guided to their targets using US aerial and satellite reconnaissance (they have to take multiple evasive actions in the course of their flights to evade Russian radar systems, and this can only be supplied via real-time targeting information provided by the US). It is speculated that the operators of the drones were either mercenaries trained in the US or out-of-uniform US troops.
According to Russian nuclear doctrine, any attack on Russia’s basic nuclear first alert system constitutes grounds for nuclear retaliation. The attack by Ukraine, with the support of US, on the nuclear early warning system shows that the US imperialists are recklessly stepping up the offensive against Russia, unmindful of the possibility of unleashing a nuclear war.
On June 13 , the United States signed a 10-year military pact with Ukraine. In a brazen act of provocation, the US and its closest allies have announced that they would use interest from Russian money in European and US banks to advance a $50 billion loan for Ukraine. It may be recalled that the US and its allies have illegally frozen $ 300 billion of Russian assets lying in their banks after the Russia-Ukraine war began .
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has warned the West that attempts to take income from frozen Russian assets are criminal and would lead to a response from Russia that would be very painful for the European Union.
Lying propaganda of the US increasingly exposed
The US and its NATO allies have being carrying out continuous propaganda blaming Russia as the cause for the ongoing war with Ukraine. The truth is that it is the US and its NATO allies who are responsible for the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.
The US has been trying to get Ukraine into NATO, so that it can station NATO troops and missiles inside that country, targeted at Russia. In 2014, the US organised a coup called the Maidan coup against the elected government of Ukraine, to bring to power pro US forces who would support the US agenda. The new government organised bloodbaths of people who were for friendly relations with Russia and opposed to Ukraine joining an anti-Russia alliance.
The US and NATO refused to provide Russia with the assurance it sought in 2022, that Ukraine would not be joining the NATO military alliance. Instead, the US began taking one measure after another to integrate Ukraine into the US war machine, so as to admit Ukraine into NATO at the appropriate time. Russia was left with no choice but to prevent such a possibility.
For the last two years and more, Russia has made numerous efforts to end the war by striking a peace agreement. However, the US and its allies do not want Ukraine to sign such an agreement. The US wants the ongoing war to continue as long as it takes, to weaken and destroy Russia. This is why, the US has been sabotaging every effort by Russia and other countries for peace.
More and more countries of the world are realizing that the US and its allies are responsible for prolonging and escalating the war between Ukraine and Russia. They are refusing to join the US bandwagon by condemning Russia for the continuation of the war.
The situation is Europe is extremely grave. There is need for the world’s peoples to be vigilant and oppose the efforts of the US to continue to escalate the war against Russia.