For those who have made dialogue and international cooperation a reason for living, the words of Emmanuel Macron, Manuel Valls, Mark Rutte, Antti Petteri Orpo, Rishi Sunak on the possible NATO intervention in Ukrainian territory against Russia imply only one thing: the beginning of the Third World War.
Perhaps it has escaped notice that Mark Rutte who is available to send soldiers to Ukraine is the next candidate to become Secretary General of NATO supported by the United States of America and that speeches implying greater interventionism against Moscow are always supported by those who are historically afraid of the Russian neighbor for historical reasons such as the Baltic countries and the Scandinavian peninsula.
But the most annoying role in terms of lack of clarity, as has often happened in the last twenty years, is that of the United States. Pentagon Chief Lloyd James Austin III said on February 29: “The defeat of Ukraine would threaten a direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO.” Later on, the State Department declares: “The United States sees no signs that the Russian Federation is preparing to use nuclear weapons.”
These words echoed those of former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on live TV: “The possible outbreak of a Third World War cannot be ruled out; we must be prepared for such a development of events.” According to him, Russia’s victory in the Ukrainian conflict will be equivalent to the “strategic, military, political and moral defeat of Europe and the West”.
However, the exact opposite is true, in terms of strategic intelligence and not simple data collection, whether open or secret: the words of Valls and all the others equate to a lack of predictive capacity, political-military first and foremost, on the military and economic capabilities of Russia and its allies. In the last twenty years at least.
Finland will purchase JDAM and SDB I aerial bombs for the F-35 fighter from the United States for 96 million dollars, deliveries will be made from 2024 to 2030, according to the Finnish Ministry of Defense, a country that has offered to help the Ukraine and said that the weapons given to Kiev can be used against targets on Russian territory.
To curb the warmongering enthusiasm, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, speaking to the national parliament, stated that no one in Europe will send troops to Ukraine, the CTK agency reported. “No one in Europe will send troops to Ukraine,” Fiala said, responding to a corresponding question from opposition MPs. According to the Prime Minister, French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea on the sidelines of the recent Paris summit, where it was a “minimal topic,” the report says. The No to sending the military also came from Italy, Poland and Germany.
The fact is that, years ago, while Paris forced Italy into war against Gaddafi, for example, Russia made agreements with the BRICS, sent its men to Africa, made agreements with Iran and China and improved its military capabilities and gave rise to an unprecedented production of weapons. Since 2014, Russia has foreseen in its military strategy, based, one might say, on the game of chess, to lead to a possible armed conflict with the West; at the same time, Western officials in the Defense sector were busy playing another game: perhaps playing at poker, one against the other, effectively arriving mentally poorly prepared for a direct confrontation which must not be based on an underestimation of the opponent, as we often hear in the various European chancelleries.
Europe, as a whole, in the same period, was competing to see who was the driving force of Europe, who had the best European foreign policy or who was the best American ally. in short, the long-term continuous work on Russia’s foreign and diplomatic policy has not been thought about, studied or analysed; Moscow today scores the sixth place in the world in terms of number of foreign offices and China is in first place; in practice in the West something else has happened: we have looked at our navel, but the Navel of the World risks disappearing from the West, if it ever existed.
Returning to the imminent war, it’s enough to hide behind a finger: Germany was the country that put its foot down, also revealing what was best hidden, not that it wasn’t known but it wasn’t official, namely that the French and British military – and Americans we add – are on Ukrainian soil to use those weapons that require technical skills that Ukrainians do not have and that cannot be acquired with just a six weeks training.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on February 29 that he will refrain from supplying Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine because they can hit targets in Moscow. “The Taurus has a range of 500 kilometers and, if used incorrectly, could hit a target somewhere in Moscow,” Scholz told citizens of Dresden.
The German Chancellor once again stated that to ensure control over the use of Taurus missiles it would be necessary to send German military personnel to Ukraine, but according to Scholz this is excluded: “I express myself with all diplomatic abstraction – others were also worried to know exactly what is happening and where,” Scholz added.
Olaf Scholz has been accused of leaking data on British and French military personnel in Ukraine. Critics called his statements a “slap in the face of allies” and a “blatant abuse of intelligence.”
Unfortunately, however, the representatives of the Bundeswehr got caught for having discussed the option of attacking the Crimean bridge with Taurus missiles mounted on a Dassault Rafale fighter, as reported by the Russian agency RIA Novosti and the Estonian newspaper EestiEest on 1 March, on line there is complete a link to the transcript of the conversation. Olaf Scholz had no comment, nor the Defense German Ministry . But this fact, if established, would contradict his promise to German citizens.
The French president confirmed on February 29 that he had spoken quite consciously about the discussion about sending Western troops to Ukraine, saying he had “weighed” and “rethought” his words, he told reporters during a visit to the future Olympic village on the outskirts of Paris. On March 1st he already changed his mind: “France will not send its troops to Ukraine to conduct military operations, the French will not die for Ukraine.” It’s a shame that it has already happened: the French died in Kherson killed by Russian missiles that hit a structure on the Ukrainian side where the French soldiers/militiamen slept together with the British and Poles and personnel of other nationalities. Officially they would appear as mercenaries or foreign fighters not included in the French regular forces, as stated by the Paris authorities.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated the concept that France will not send soldiers to Ukraine on March 1st.
The British newspaper The Times published an article about how the Chief of Defense Staff of the British Armed Forces, Admiral Tony Radakin, was “secretly helping Ukraine with combat plans.” According to Times sources, Radakin helped Ukraine develop combat plans. In particular, it was reported that the admiral helped Ukraine develop a strategy for attacking warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. He also “provided invaluable help in coordinating the support of other senior NATO leaders.”
The Times news even finds push in the Russian press and authorities: “Great Britain is actually directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RTVI, commenting on the Times publication according to which Admiral Tony Radakin is “secretly helping Ukraine with combat plans.”
“In general, it is no secret that the British actually provide various forms of support to Ukraine. And people on the spot, and intelligence, and so on and so forth. That is, they are directly involved in this conflict”, commented Dmitry Peskov.
Also on March 1, the Kremlin spokesperson declared: “The statement by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that the defeat of Ukraine will lead to a conflict between NATO and Russia is irresponsible.” “This is another extremely irresponsible statement we have heard in the last few days,” he said. “We hear extremely irresponsible statements coming from several European capitals, and now also from overseas,” the Kremlin spokesperson continued.
According to him, “these statements lead to a further escalation of tension, although there seems to be nowhere to do so further, and, above all, they actually demonstrate NATO’s worldview.” “NATO considers Ukraine its territory,” Peskov explained. This, he said, “underlines once again the absolute correctness of what the Russian Federation is doing, as well as the correctness and justification of the special military operation.” Spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova on the statement of the head of the Pentagon on a possible clash between Russia and NATO said: “Now everyone can see who the aggressor is, Washington”.
Austin’s words also gave fuel to more heated positions and statements in Russia: the head of the military committee of the Russian State Duma Kartapolov, after the words of the head of the Pentagon, told RIA Novosti that NATO can expect the fate of ‘Ukraine if it continues its aggressive policy According to the Politico newspaper: French President Emmanuel Macron’s statements on the possible sending of troops from NATO and EU countries to Ukraine have only worsened the situation in Kiev.
As the publication notes, Macron has repeatedly made statements in his political career that he later had to retract. However, the “mention of the possibility of sending NATO troops” revealed a “glaring lack of understanding” of its partners, as well as of European public opinion, which, Politico writes, is increasingly concerned about developments in Ukraine.
Now, according to the newspaper, continuing support for Kiev will require “the collective persuasion power of all European leaders.” Attempts to promote the idea of sending troops to Ukraine will only increase the risk of rejection. Therefore, the publication concludes, Kiev found itself in a “difficult situation, not having a sufficient number of military personnel and dispatch of projectiles” for a serious counterattack. Ukraine can only wait in the hope that the situation will change next year , concludes Politico.
NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana claims that Ukraine will join the North Atlantic Alliance, although it is not yet possible to say exactly when this will happen and this Putin has said in every way will be a reason for the escalation of the conflict. Geoana also stated that the Alliance does not currently see an immediate threat deriving from the possible use of nuclear weapons by Russia.
Russia, however, decided to send a signal to the Alliance: “While everyone listened with interest to Putin’s message to the Federal Assembly, the command of the Northern Fleet sent two of its large Tu-142 aircraft to the Norwegian Sea and to the northern coast of Great Britain with the mission of demonstrating to all of NATO that the exercises currently being conducted there are under control. On approach to England, the aircraft was accompanied by a pair of Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhonn fighters, operating from RAF Lossiemouth base.
And now we are back to the starting point: the United States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy and Spain have said No to the possibility of sending their soldiers to Ukrainian territory.
At the same time, The Washington Post reported that some NATO states, including the United States, Britain and France, have already sent “a small number of special forces and military advisers” to Ukraine. The Netherlands is ready to send soldiers and the current Dutch premier is a candidate to become NATO’s SecGen.
These days, France-sponsored Armenia is abandoning the CSTO; Moldova put pressure on Transnistria, with an economic blockade, to have a place in Europe or in the Alliance by making Transnistria ask for support from Russia; Albania received the new drones from Turkey which is also the country that will lead KFOR in Kosovo and Metohija where many Turkish weapons and vehicles are flowing and where the Kosovar Albanians are creating problems with the Serbs, close to Russia.
The pieces on the chessboard are moving, or the stakes are being raised, if we want to use a metaphor, in fact.
If anyone still thinks that we are not on the threshold of a world war, let them speak up now, because the world does not need and deserve another war.
Antonio Albanese and Graziella Giangiulio
