Pentagon chief's 'Freudian slip' reveals US war intent - Moscow

RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2024 16:30 UTC

© Sputnik / Alexey Maishev

FILE PHOTO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Testimony given to the US Congress by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is evidence that Washington clearly has plans for direct NATO involvement in a conflict with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on Friday.

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, Austin said that "if Ukraine falls, I genuinely believe NATO will be fighting Russia."

Lavrov was asked about Austin's remarks during an interview at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Türkiye.

"He simply made a Freudian slip to reveal what they [the US] had in mind," the Russian diplomat said. "They used to say they can't allow Ukraine to lose, because Russia won't be satisfied and would attack the Baltic states, Poland, [and] Finland next. It turns out, according to Mr. Austin's frank words, that everything is exactly the opposite. We do not and cannot have such plans, but the Americans do."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has already commented on Austin's remarks, wondering if they were a direct threat to Russia or an attempt to generate excuses for Ukraine.

"Either way, it's madness," she said. "But now everyone sees that Washington is the aggressor."

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Austin's testimony proved that "NATO regards Ukraine as its own territory," which proves that Russia's military operation is "absolutely justified and correct."

Austin's testimony was part of a push by the White House to get congressional approval for a $95 billion foreign aid bill, which includes more than $60 billion in funding for Kiev. The US and its allies have already sent Ukraine over $200 billion in military, economic, and financial aid for the conflict against Russia - disregarding Moscow's warnings and objections, while insisting they are not directly involved.

The idea that Moscow will not stop with Kiev and move to attack the Baltic states or Poland next is the latest talking point of the US administration. Previously it has tried to sell the indefinite funding of Kiev by claiming Ukraine is defeating Russia on a fraction of the US military budget, and that most of the money would end up going to the American military industry anyway.

Comment:
1) For the comment from Llyod Austin:

And from Sergei Lavrov:

2) See also:
West flirting with nuclear war - Putin

President Putin insisted that recent claims by Western officials, that Moscow is planning to attack NATO, are "nonsense." At the same time, those same nations are "selecting targets to conduct strikes on our territory," the Russian head of state claimed, adding that there is now talk of "deploying NATO military contingents to Ukraine."

Putin reminded would-be aggressors that all previous attempts to conquer Russia have ended in failure, warning that "now the consequences for potential invaders would be far more tragic." He pointed out that Russia has a massive nuclear arsenal, which is in a state of "complete readiness for guaranteed deployment."

"Everything that they are thinking up now, that they are scaring the world with, it all really poses the threat of a conflict involving nuclear weapons, and therefore, the destruction of civilization. Don't they understand this?"

The Russian president suggested that Western politicians making those escalatory remarks "have already forgotten what war is."

Unlike Russians, who have faced "difficult trials" in recent decades, Westerners apparently "think that these are just some cartoons," President Putin opined.

His remarks came after his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, toyed with the idea of a potential ground deployment of Western militaries to Ukraine while talking to reporters on Monday, saying "in terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything."

Sovereignty, US hypocrisy, nuclear warnings: Key takeaways from Putin's Federal Assembly address

Russia will overcome attempts to constrain it

The president stated that Russia has proven that it is capable of solving the most difficult problems and challenges, has been able to repel "the aggression of international terrorism" and preserve national unity, despite Western attempts to tear Russia apart like it did Ukraine and to turn it into a "dependent, fading, dying space where they can do whatever they want" by sowing national conflicts.

Moving forward, the president stressed that Russia will continue to defend its freedom, preserve its history and traditions, further develop its democratic institutions and protect its sovereignty, not allowing anyone to interfere in its internal affairs.

Best of the Web: Did the West intentionally incite Putin to war?

Conclusion

So, the question arises just how much the US and NATO tried to draw, provoke, incite Russia into war in Ukraine or at least made Kiev so robustly prepared for war that it made war inevitable - the late stage of the proverbial self-fulfilling prophecy about perceived (in this case, sans NATO expansion, misperceived) threats. Long before the Maidan putch, the US and NATO were on course for war in Ukraine by expanding NATO as some warned at the time. Continuing NATO expansion particularly to Ukraine would spark a NATO-Russia war. Throughout post-Cold war history and particularly in the 2004-2014 period, the US and NATO increased support for Ukraine's military and integrated it into NATO operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. A 'high point' in this process was the 2008 NATO summit that promised that Ukraine and Georgia would become NATO members in future. From 2010 to 2014, as NATO's website notes, "Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy, which it terminated in response to Russia's aggression".

The NATO statement naturally leaves out the Maidan revolt that overthrew the government conducting the neutrality policy that preceded 'Russia's aggression" and was nurtured by Western money and networks in Ukraine. In Western analyses, Western actions have no effect on Russian calculations about its own security. Meanwhile, the US and NATO took no steps to oppose the rising influence of ultranationalism, neofascism, and anti-Russian feeling in Ukraine beginning with the Orange Revolution. In this period the West tirelessly cultivated pro-NATO networks in Ukraine in order to amass pro-NATO, pro-EU sentiment and promote regime change or 'color revolution' in Ukraine on the Maidan 'revolution' in 2013-2014, but I and others have already made that point and exhaustively so [see Gordon M. Hahn, Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West and the 'New Cold War' (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Books, 2018).

Best of the Web: CIA has 'many bases' in Ukraine - FSB boss

The CIA has "many" bases in Ukraine, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Aleksandr Bortnikov told Russian television on Thursday, when asked about a New York Times report on the spy network.

The US newspaper described a decade-long record of cooperation between the American spy agency and Ukrainian special services.

According to the article, which was published last Sunday, the CIA has 12 secret bases on Ukrainian soil which are actively working against Russia. The paper wrote that over the past eight years, the CIA has trained and equipped Kiev's intelligence officers in underground bunkers, some of which are nestled deep in the forests of Ukraine.

Bortnikov told Channel 1:

"They [US intelligence] had entered there a long time ago and are using this resource to do the dirty work, on their own and with the hands of the Ukrainian special services."

He said "work is ongoing," when asked whether Russia can get to the CIA sites.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that the Americans have far more outposts in Ukraine than the 12 bases reported by the NYT. Russia was not oblivious to the clandestine Western activities within the borders of its hostile neighbor, officials in Moscow have said.

Biden's attack on Nord Stream pipelines was aimed at Germany - Seymour Hersh

The attack on the Nord Stream pipelines commissioned by US President Joe Biden was primarily aimed at Germany rather than Russia, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has claimed. The decision to destroy the key pipelines was prompted by US fears that Berlin might not follow Washington's lead amid the Ukraine conflict, Hersh wrote in a new article on the affair on his Substack blog on Friday.

The sabotage of the pipelines was ordered weeks before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began in February 2022, Hersh wrote, adding that the American operatives assigned to it believed it was meant to deter Moscow. The attack on the pipelines was ready by late May, but "the plan was called off on short notice by Biden," the journalist claimed.

Instead, the team was tasked with planting explosives on the pipelines, which could be detonated remotely at a later date, he said. The timing of the attack, which ultimately occurred in late September 2022, appeared to be aimed at Berlin rather than Moscow.

"Biden's timing seemed aimed at Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz. Some in the CIA believed that the president's fear was that Scholz, whose constituents were lukewarm in their support for Ukraine, might waffle with winter coming on and conclude that keeping his people warm and his industries prosperous was more important than backing Ukraine against Russia," Hersh wrote.

To avoid losing control of Europe, the U.S. has a war plan for Europe and Russia (2014)

A close relationship between Moscow and Europe would remove the rationale for America's military role in NATO and thereby its political influence in Europe.

The US is prepared to plunge Europe into a war with Russia in order for Washington to preserve its hegemony over the transatlantic axis.

The key issues are the prevention of Russia and Europe developing closer trade and political ties - stemming primarily from a vast trade in energy fuels; and, secondly, the survival of the American dollar as the world's reserve currency.

Pentagon's plan for Europe? Make it the frontline in a war with Russia (This was 2017!)

The plan is clear and is already underway: to transform Europe into the firing line for yet another confrontation with Russia. The announcement made on 4 May, confirms this: that the US Army in Europe had built a new headquarters at Poznan, Poland, to command more than 6,000 US soldiers that have been lined up in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in order to "strengthen Nato's Eastern flank, serving as a deterrence to Russia".

In this lining up on the Eastern flank, which includes armoured forces, fighter bombers, war ships and missile units (including nuclear ones) - are participating Nato European powers. This is demonstrated by France sending her troops and Britain her tanks, to Estonia.

And what about the European army? At the meeting of the EU Defense Ministers, on 27 April at Malta, the Nato Secretary General, Stoltenberg left no room for doubt: "it was clearly agreed by the European Union that its objective is not to build a new European army or structures of command in competition with Nato's, but something that may complement what Nato is doing".

The sceptre of command thus remains squarely in the hands of the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a US general appointed by the US President.

3) As if preparing for a conflict in Europe even after a collapse of NATO, the US has in recent years made a number of bilateral military agreements with European NATO states. Even if a few NATO countries throw their cards on the table, and sign out before or after a first round of shock and awe, war can still continue, since some US bilateral agreements are phrased such that the agreements can not be cancelled from the point of beginning and for the duration of its terms, say ten years. In addition, some European NATO states, like Germany, France, Britain, Denmark, The Netherlands ... have recently signed mutual defence agreements with Ukraine. From this perspective it does not matter How Macron's latest Ukraine comments blew NATO apart or that Germany's Scholz implies British troops operating long-range missiles INSIDE Ukraine, is slammed by counterparts for intel-leak NATO or not, the ground is being prepared for war involving the European NATO area. This does not mean it will happen, but it is possible.

Vladimir Putin once said that one lesson he learned in his teenage years from the rough areas in what was then Leningrad, was that if a conflict becomes inevitable, be the first to strike. By pushing Europe over the edge the US may hope to present the image of Russia that they want, as they have done, or tried to do, with what has happened in Ukraine. At the same time however, nefariousness is increasing in the US and Europe to the point that more Western Europeans are beginning to see something is amiss.