Britain most hostile state to Russia - former defense minister

RT
Tue, 05 Mar 2024 07:13 UTC

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File photo: The Prince of Wales’s Company of the Welsh Guards, Windsor, England, July 2023

The Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are similarly antagonistic, Sergey Ivanov has claimed

The UK is historically the most hostile Western state in terms of its policy toward Moscow, former Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov claimed on Monday.

Speaking at the launch of a new book, 'Nazi genocide of the people of the USSR', Ivanov was asked whether the Nazi plan of "clearing" Russia of its population is still alive in Europe today. The "'idea,' if you can call it that, is several hundred years old," he answered.

"I believe that the most hostile state to Russia is Great Britain, which has been at the same thing for 300-400 years: attempting to limit Russia, limit its influence, limit its economic power - to do everything to make Russia exist on the European periphery," added Ivanov, who is a permanent member of the Russian Security Council.

"It doesn't matter whether the policy is aimed at the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation - it remains the same."

Similarly, the Baltic states are among the "leading" Western countries in terms of their hatred of Russia, Ivanov claimed. The only thing standing in the way of Western plans for Moscow are the "Russian Army and Navy," he argued.

The UK has emerged as the third largest donor to Ukraine amid Kiev's conflict with Moscow, providing almost $10 billion in military aid since February 2022. In January, British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps predicted a possible war with Russia within the next five years as he called for military spending to be ramped up across NATO.

The UK also stifled a potential peace deal between Moscow and Kiev early on in the conflict, according to the head of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky's parliamentary bloc, David Arakhamia, who served as his country's top negotiator in the 2022 talks in Istanbul. He claimed that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pressured the Zelensky administration to pull out of the discussions - a claim Johnson later denied.

Russia maintains that the tens of billions of dollars of foreign military aid being funneled into Ukraine means that the West is waging a de facto proxy war.

Moscow remains ready for peace talks but sees no willingness for them on the part of the US and its allies, who are still seeking to inflict a battlefield defeat on Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated last week.

Comment: There are many other articles on the same topic of Russophobia, as the links below will show, but when the book by Sergey Ivanov was titled 'Nazi genocide of the people of the USSR' it could refer to the 20-27 million Soviet citizens who lost their lives as a result of the WWII.

Russophobia: History of Hate | RT Documentary

Researchers, historians and writers in the documentary claim Russia became a convenient target after the Great Schism. Throughout history, European rulers and philosophers constructed the image of an uncivilised nation, unfit for talks. For example, French philosophers Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau argued if Russia could become a civilised country or if it was destined to remain barbarian.

The mythical ferocious Russian bear and the tale of bad Russia still feature in the media and contribute to modern russophobia. The documentary traces the origins of the anti-Russian narrative in the West and explores who benefits from it.

The Long Roots of Our Russophobia

Mettan defines Russophobia as the promotion of negative stereotypes about Russia that associate the country with despotism, treachery, expansion, oppression and other negative character traits. In his view, it is "not linked to specific historical events" but "exists first in the head of the one who looks, not in the victim's alleged behavior or characteristics."

Like anti-semitism, Mettan writes, "Russophobia is a way of turning specific pseudo-facts into essential one-dimensional values, barbarity, despotism, and expansionism in the Russian case in order to justify stigmatization and ostracism."

The origins of Russophobic discourse date back to a schism in the Church during the Middle Ages when Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Roman empire and modified the Christian liturgy to introduce reforms execrated by the Eastern Orthodox Churches of the Byzantine empire.

Mettan writes that "the Europe of Charlemagne and of the year 1000 was in need of a foil in the East to rebuild herself, just as the Europe of the 2000s needs Russia to consolidate her union."

The UK
We've been here before: British Russophobia propaganda comes full circle

The classic British anti-war film The Charge of the Light Brigade will be fifty years old next year. Who would have thought the crude Russophobia of the 1850s, which Tony Richardson expertly satirized, would be back in vogue half a century later?

The idea history is cyclical and not linear is probably not disproved by looking back to what happened to Britain in the 1850s.

Then, as now, the establishment (and also some of its critics) were promulgating the most ludicrous conspiracy theories about how the 'barbarian' Russians posed a threat not just to the British Empire, but to the entire Western civilization.

Then as now, it was all a load of hogwash. The warmongers of the day just wanted an excuse for another scrap, one in which like their neocon counterparts today, they would stay safely out of harm's way when the cannon balls were fired. For the financial elites, conflict meant excess profits and a nice return on war loans.

Russophobia, obsession of the UK elite
Top British spook comes out of the shadows to further push Russophobia onto Western citizens
Alert: England has contagious Russophobia
Boris Johnson derailed Ukraine peace deal - key Zelensky ally

The US
A Genealogy of American Russophobia
The psychological reasons for Russophobia in the US
Lavrov: Obama-initiated Russophobia campaign hangs on in US
Russophobia narrative will continue because 'everyone is afraid of the Deep State'