Ukraine, the igniting spark

What kind of war is the USA preparing against Russia?

by Thomas Röper*

(18 April 2021) There was a commentary on Russian television that makes one think and worry, because the logic cannot be dismissed. The new US administration is heading for war; it is playing with fire. And it is doing so in Europe.

I keep reporting on how the situation in Ukraine politically, but also militarily in the Donbass, is getting worse since Joe Biden took office as US president. Everything points to an imminent Ukrainian offensive, and in Kiev the opposition and the last media critical of the government are being eliminated at the same time. Meanwhile, more and more weapons are arriving in Ukraine from the USA. I report on this regularly in my "Ukraine Updates”.

Furthermore, you don't hear a word about all this in the Western media. It is not even reported in the West that Kiev has already openly abandoned the Minsk Agreement. And the fact that the Western states including Germany recently voted against a simple resolution at the OSCE calling for the implementation of the Minsk Agreement, has not been reported by the "quality media" either.

The West is also already openly turning its back on the peace plan for the Donbass. But the new fierce war is supposed to come as a complete surprise to the public in the West, and of course the media will accuse Russia of having started the war.

In the programme "News of the Week" on Russian television, the presenter put one and one together in a commentary, named the possible scenarios, and I translated that.

Start of translation of TV commentary:

In the programme "News of the Week" we want to report not only on events but also on phenomena. We consider it important to look at phenomena or sequences of incidents or words, if only to be prepared for future events. After all, events are also prepared. In my opinion, the West is now preparing – nothing more and nothing less than – a war against us.

The extent of the war is not yet really clear, but America hopes, firstly, that it can control the extent of a military conflict. Secondly, it hopes that a war will not touch the territory of the United States, as in previous times. And thirdly, the US hopes to benefit from the war, as usual. At least that was the case in the two World Wars, after which America, having shed little blood of its own, was amassing great wealth while both allies and adversaries were in a much worse position.

Now it looks as if America is up to something similar. And there is a phenomenon that demonstrates this quite convincingly. Today, we are talking about words that prepare for war, plant the thoughts of the inevitability of conflict in people's minds and name the culprits in advance. These words are heard much more often in the United States since the arrival of the new administration. And in Europe one hears their echo.

"Russia is a dangerous neighbour!" EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell said before the start of the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. By the way, a short while ago Borrell was behaving decently in Moscow, but now he parroted it all in the presence of the US Secretary of State in Brussels.

And Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, in Brussels. "We will take firm action against Russian aggression, against actions that undermine our alliances," the politician said.

What Russian aggression is Blinken talking about? NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg deciphers the riddle: "Despite years of pressure and efforts to engage Russia in constructive dialogue, Russia continues to reinforce its pattern of repressive behaviour inside the country and aggressive behaviour outside its borders. NATO countries have pointed to Russia's misinformation and propaganda, its attempts to influence elections, to launch cyber attacks and use of chemical weapons against political opponents both inside and outside Russia."

Interestingly, this is all unfounded, but it is repeated so often that one should get used to it. And then there is the US President's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan: "We believe that relations with Russia are in for a difficult time. They will face serious challenges. These require America to defend its interests."

In psychology, there is the concept of "projection", when a person projects their fears, their desires and their intentions from themselves onto others, effectively attributing to another what they themselves have in their heart. This is exactly the kind of projection that Vladimir Putin, in response to Joe Biden's insults, compared to a story from childhood: what you say about others actually fits yourself. The same is now true of Russia's "aggression" that we hear about so often and obsessively from the West. And in my opinion, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, has correctly dissected the American rhetoric.

"My American colleague Jake Sullivan predicts difficult days ahead for the US in its relations with Russia. This is not the first such statement by US officials. We know this, but I want to emphasise that if they are predicting it, they are planning it. And if they plan it, they are able to implement it. But then, they will be responsible for the measures to follow", Patrushev said.

And as a follow-up, US Secretary of Defence General Lloyd Austin in the Senate: "The primary objective of US relations with the Russian Federation in the area of security should be to deter Russia from actions against the vital interests of the United States, including protection of our allies from military aggression."

Russian aggression again, while at the same time, America is preparing aggressions. Right now there are two American missile cruisers hanging around in the Black Sea. What are they doing here, on the other side of the world from their point of view? And overall, NATO naval activity off our coasts has increased many times over in the last year. These data were given by the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and he added that "the number of flights of the US strategic air force near the Russian state border has also increased." As for the reconnaissance aircrafts, their visits to us have increased by a third in the last year. This shows, the words that prepare for war are not just words.

China faces more or less the same problem. Verbal accusations against Beijing of repression and aggression are followed by an increased US military presence near China's borders. In addition to virtually constant military exercises in the Yellow Sea, the Americans have permanently stationed the destroyer Rafael Peralta in Japan, and in March it was reported that American missiles would be stationed on the islands of the East China Sea and South China Sea, in case of "potential Chinese aggression," of course. The missiles imply new US missile bases on the islands. The document on this has already been sent to Congress for approval. The budget requested for the project is $27.4 billion. Not bad.

All this together signifies that Russia and China should move closer together and not just stand back to back, but cooperate more actively and create a global alliance for peace.

Listen to what the Commander of US Forces in Europe and Commander-in-Chief of NATO forces in Europe, General Tod Walters, says: "Russia is committing malicious acts designed to destabilise the entire world, many of these actions are being committed in Europe. Russia continues to pose a threat to the very existence of the United States and our European allies."

And this after the NATO expansion eastwards to our borders, under conditions where the defence budget of "aggressive" Russia is one seventeenth of the American! And the military budget of the NATO countries together, which so ostentatiously tremble before Russia, amounts to more than a trillion dollars a year, which is 23 times more than ours! Is the extent of corruption so unimaginably great, or is this an unimaginable level of paranoia? Most probably, these incredible figures of the military budgets of our potential friends signify preparations for war.

Will the NATO countries fight Russia? Directly? No. Their states and their civil societies are not in the necessary shape for that. All of them are flabby and helpless. Covid has confirmed this. With this immediate threat, with human casualties in NATO countries already well over one million, the NATO mechanism has proved to be meaningless. Yet, this was only testing its ability to protect its peoples. But instead of protection and solidarity, we have seen mutual theft of masks, humiliating squabbles over vaccines and the stoking of anti-Russian fears even against Sputnik-V.

But America must contain Russia – if necessary with war. So far, everything – including promises of support – looks like sending Ukraine to slaughter – against the Donbass. Russia will be blamed for the war, and they are talking in advance about "holding Russia accountable for the aggression" and so on. And then new sanctions will come and so on and so forth. That is the plan in America right now. Ukraine is merely used as the igniting spark in this plan.

Source: Anti-Spiegel from 29 March 2021

(Translation «Swiss Standpoint»)

* Thomas Röper, born in 1971, has held executive and supervisory board positions as an expert for Eastern Europe in financial services companies in Eastern Europe and Russia. Today he lives in his adopted home of St. Petersburg. He has lived in Russia for over 15 years and speaks fluent Russian. The focus of his media-critical work is the (media) image of Russia in Germany, criticism of Western media reporting in general and the topics of (geo-) politics and economics.