Are the western warmongers provoking a Third World War?
by Karl-Jürgen Müller
Donald Trump Jr’s reaction came loud and clear. Following initial media reports on 17 November that outgoing US President Joe Biden had given his permission to target Russian territory within internationally recognised borders with US ATACMS missiles, he tweeted: “The Military-Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War III going before my father has a chance to make peace and save lives.”
The president’s son’s warnings were followed by other well-known figures from the Trump team – and from personalities around the world who want to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible. Thus, it is not only from the Russian perspective that the latest development is a clear escalation – and a direct US entry into war that goes far beyond the previous war involvement of the USA and other NATO states. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made this clear in several statements since June of this year, most recently on 12 September:
“Hence this is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to attack Russia with these weapons or not. It is a question of deciding whether or not the NATO countries will become directly involved in the military conflict. If this decision is taken, it will mean nothing other than the direct involvement of the NATO countries, the USA and the European countries, in the war in Ukraine. That is their direct involvement, and of course it changes the essence, the nature of the conflict considerably. It will mean that the NATO countries, the USA and the European countries, will be at war with Russia. And if that is the case, then we will take the appropriate decisions in view of the changed nature of this conflict, based on the threats arising for us.”1
The Deputy Head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, referred to this in his latest statement on 19 November. It talks about “striking back with weapons of mass destruction [...]” and also about “World War III”:
“The one thing that is really important is the statement that the head of state of Russia made on 12 September. Accordingly, today [19 November] a new version of the foundations of state policy in the field of nuclear deterrence [nuclear doctrine] was approved. The use of Alliance [Nato] missiles in this way would be categorised as an attack by the Alliance nations against Russia. In such a scenario, Russia reserves the right to strike back with weapons of mass destruction against Kiev and crucial Nato facilities, wherever they may be. That would result in a third world war.”2
What is the
purpose of the missile strike?
On 19 November, it was also reported that the first US ATACMS missiles were fired at Russian territory from Ukraine. Five of them were said to have been intercepted.3
The deployment of the ATACMS missiles will not turn the tide of the war in Ukraine, but it will escalate it. Volodimir Zelensky is up to his neck in water. He is betting everything on escalation agreeing with the Western warmongers who are also in deep water since the US elections and have been seeking a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia for some time. Do they sense their last chance? ... But are they aware that their policy of demonising the supposed enemy, of loud threats, ultimatums and actual escalation is a highly dangerous dead end for mankind? If it has not yet come to an open world war, then we must attribute this above all to Russia’s level-headed reactions. On 21 November, the Russian President responded to the Western attacks in a speech to the nation and explained Russia’s reactions to the renewed Western escalation (see box).
A hard war course
also from Western-European
Since 6 November, the day the new US president was elected, the European faction of Western warmongers set the pace. Mainly to prevent a possible US withdrawal after the inauguration of the newly elected President Donald Trump. Although this was not in the interests of European states and peoples, it was in the interest of a further escalation of the war.
There was the foreign policy daredevil and SPD politician Michael Roth, who demanded in an interview with Der Spiegel on 6 November that EU Europe must now publicly declare that it will immediately assume all costs for a continuation of the war in Ukraine and is also prepared to buy the weapons needed for Ukraine in the USA – in order to pass them on to Ukraine. This was the only way to prevent a US-Russian “dictatorial peace” against Ukraine.4
There was the British Prime Minister Starmer and the French President Macron, who were working on the US President who was still in office. Both European politicians also want to direct British and French medium-range missiles against targets in Russia. They, too, want to escalate the war and sabotage an agreement between Trump and the Russian president.5
There is the EU leadership, sticking unteachably to its course of confrontation. Everyone should take seriously what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a conversation with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Weltwoche editor-in-chief Roger Köppel in Vienna on 31 October 2024. As rotating EU Council President, he had tried to initiate peace talks in July 2024 but had encountered a solid wall of resistance in the EU. Now he said he had “no hope for Europe. I’ve seen them up close and I don’t want to say anything bad about them now. But they are set on winning the war. They want to defeat Russia. The main role is played by the President of the EU Commission. She is leading the way. She is to blame for the situation. She says the Russians must be defeated and Ukraine must be given everything to make that happen. Everything that concerns peace would be treason, anti-democratic, unacceptable, [is] pushed aside. That is the current situation in Europe.” And Gerhard Schröder asked: “Since when have people been scolded for peace initiatives? What have we got into?”6
The majority of European politicians have now applauded the US decision. It is probably entirely in the interests of the British Prime Minister and the French President. Germany is the third Western European country to possess heavy, manoeuvrable medium-range weapons. Following the US decision, leading politicians from the CDU/CSU, FDP and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen are pushing for a decision by the German Bundestag to also authorise the German Taurus missiles for attacks on Russian territory. Together, their three parliamentary groups have a majority in parliament. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressly welcomed the US decision.
Soon-to-be ex-chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), on the other hand, reiterated his opposition to Taurus deliveries to Ukraine, stating that he could and would not take responsibility for this. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico took a very clear stance against the US decision. “This is an unprecedented escalation of tensions, a decision that destroys the hope for the start of peace talks and an end to the mutual killing in Ukraine.” He added: “It is astonishing how quickly some EU countries have welcomed the militant action of the US. This only confirms that the EU is not in a position to independently formulate fundamental foreign policy positions and that the West wants to continue the war in Ukraine at all costs.”7
Europe must not leave
the field to the warmongers
But this must not be the last European word.
At this year’s Waldei Club conference – just a few days before the renewed US escalation – Russian President Vladimir Putin recalled a conversation with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1993, three years after German reunification. It was a different direction from today’s, one that had also been taken repeatedly in the centuries before. Germany played a special role in this, also as a bridge between West and East.
What did Putin say? “I have already said this, but I will indulge in recalling a conversation with former Chancellor Kohl in 1993, when I chanced to be present during his conversation with the then mayor of St. Petersburg. I had not forgotten my German then and acted as the interpreter. He let the official interpreter go. ‘Take some rest,’ he said. I stayed with them to do the interpreting. As a man who only recently was an officer of the Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence service, I was surprised by what he said. Frankly, I listened, interpreted and was surprised, to put it mildly, because my head was filled with Cold War clichés, and I was a KGB intelligence officer. Unexpectedly, Kohl said that the future of Europe, if it wanted to remain an independent centre of the global civilisation, could only be together with Russia, that we must join our efforts.”8 [emphasis km].
Can trust be restored?
However, the Russian President also made it clear that Western governments must step up to the plate today: “The lack of trust is the main problem on the Eurasian continent and in relations between Russia and European countries. You can criticise Russia as much as you want, and we probably make many mistakes as well, but when they tell us that they had signed the Minsk agreements on Ukraine only to give Ukraine an opportunity to rearm, and had not at all intended to settle the conflict peacefully, what trust is there to speak of? […] However, it is necessary to gradually revitalise the system of mutual trust. […] this could be the first step towards creating a common system of Eurasian security. Can we do this or not? Mr Kohl, whom I mentioned at the beginning, believed that this is not just necessary, but absolutely indispensable. I share this view.”9
We are still miles away from this! How this can be changed is increasingly proving to be a question of survival for Europe and probably for all mankind. •
1 cited from https://anti-spiegel.ru/2024/wollen-london-und-paris-vor-trumps-amtsantritt-mit-einem-krieg-vollendete-tatsachen-schaffen/ of 18 November 2024
2 cited from https://de.rt.com/international/226476-weisses-haus-bestaetigt-erstmals-freigabe/ of 19 November 2024
3 https://de.rt.com/russland/226504-eskalation-nach-biden-ankuendigung-ukraine/ of 19 November 2024
4 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/us-wahl-2024-spitzengespraech-mit-jens-spahn-und-michael-roth-ueber-donald-trumps-wahlsieg-das-wird-richtig-wehtun-a-6904383f-9421-4d1f-8d4b-315735c93f35 of 6 November 2024
5 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/11/starmer-macron-trump-nato-ukraine-john-healey/ of 11 November 2024
6 citations from Weltwoche No. 45.24 of 7 November 2024
7 cited from https://de.rt.com/kurzclips/video/226552-beispiellose-eskalation-fico-zu-bidens/ of 19 November 2024
8 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75521 of 7 November 2024
9 ibid.
Statement by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin of 21 November 2024
I would like to inform the military personnel of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, citizens of our country, our friends across the globe, and those who persist in the illusion that a strategic defeat can be inflicted upon Russia, about the events taking place today in the zone of the special military operation, specifically following the attacks by Western long-range weapons against our territory.
The escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, instigated by the West, continues with the United States and its NATO allies previously announcing that they authorise the use of their long-range high-precision weapons for strikes inside the Russian Federation. Experts are well aware, and the Russian side has repeatedly highlighted it, that the use of such weapons is not possible without the direct involvement of military experts from the manufacturing nations.
On November 19, six ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles produced by the United States, and on November 21, during a combined missile assault involving British Storm Shadow systems and HIMARS systems produced by the US, attacked military facilities inside the Russian Federation in the Bryansk and Kursk regions. From that point onward, as we have repeatedly emphasised in prior communications, the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has assumed elements of a global nature. Our air defence systems successfully counteracted these incursions, preventing the enemy from achieving their apparent objectives.
The fire at the ammunition depot in the Bryansk Region, caused by the debris of ATACMS missiles, was extinguished without casualties or significant damage.
In the Kursk Region, the attack targeted one of the command posts of our group North. Regrettably, the attack and the subsequent air defence battle resulted in casualties, both fatalities and injuries, among the perimeter security units and servicing staff. However, the command and operational staff of the control centre suffered no casualties and continues to manage effectively the operations of our forces to eliminate and push enemy units out of the Kursk Region.
I wish to underscore once again that the use by the enemy of such weapons cannot affect the course of combat operations in the special military operation zone. Our forces are making successful advances along the entire line of contact, and all objectives we have set will be accomplished.
In response to the deployment of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a combined strike on a facility within Ukraine’s defence industrial complex. In field conditions, we also carried out tests of one of Russia’s latest medium-range missile systems – in this case, carrying a non-nuclear hypersonic ballistic missile that our engineers named Oreshnik. The tests were successful, achieving the intended objective of the launch. In the city of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, one of the largest and most famous industrial complexes from the Soviet Union era, which continues to produce missiles and other armaments, was hit.
We are developing intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. We believe that the United States made a mistake by unilaterally destroying the INF Treaty in 2019 under a far-fetched pretext. Today, the United States is not only producing such equipment, but, as we can see, it has worked out ways to deploy its advanced missile systems to different regions of the world, including Europe, during training exercises for its troops. Moreover, in the course of these exercises, they are conducting training for using them.
As a reminder, Russia has voluntarily and unilaterally committed not to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles until US weapons of this kind appear in any region of the world.
To reiterate, we are conducting combat tests of the Oreshnik missile system in response to NATO’s aggressive actions against Russia. Our decision on further deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles will depend on the actions of the United States and its satellites.
We will determine the targets during further tests of our advanced missile systems based on the threats to the security of the Russian Federation. We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities, and in case of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and in mirror-like manner. I recommend that the ruling elites of the countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia seriously consider this.
It goes without saying that when choosing, if necessary and as a retaliatory measure, targets to be hit by systems such as Oreshnik on Ukrainian territory, we will in advance suggest that civilians and citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones. We will do so for humanitarian reasons, openly and publicly, without fear of counter-moves coming from the enemy, who will also be receiving this information.
Why without fear? Because there are no means of countering such weapons today. Missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, which is 2.5 to 3 kilometres per second. Air defence systems currently available in the world and missile defence systems being created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles. It is impossible.
I would like to emphasise once again that it was not Russia, but the United States that destroyed the international security system and, by continuing to fight, cling to its hegemony, they are pushing the whole world into a global conflict.
We have always preferred and are ready now to resolve all disputes by peaceful means. But we are also ready for any turn of events.
If anyone still doubts this, make no mistake: there will always be a response.
Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75614
