The clouds of superpower war are gathering over Europe
People usually talk about “the cold war years” as if the cold war is a thing of the past. News reports, on a daily basis and for quite some time, show that the opposite is the truth.
In fact, the cold war does go on and has reached a very dangerous stage. Daily exchanges between the USA and NATO on the one side and Russia and China on the other sound like a dialogue of the deaf.
Reuters reports today (13/12/21) show that there is total mistrust between the two sides. In fact, that’s how it was summarised by the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Ryabkov in an interview to Russia’s RIA news agency.
Mr Ryabkov said Russia had a “complete lack of trust” in NATO. Among other things, he commented: “They believe they can act as they need, to their advantage, and we simply have to swallow all this and deal with it. This is not going to continue.”
“His comments further raised the stakes in an East-West standoff in which Russia is demanding security guarantees from the West while the United States and its allies are warning Moscow to pull back from what they see as a possible invasion of Ukraine – something Ryabkov again denied was Russia’s intent”, Reuters reports.
As a result, Russia said on Monday (13/12/2021) that “it may be forced to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to what it sees as NATO’s plans to do the same” – always according to Reuters.
Later in the day (13/12/2021), Reuters came up with even more frightening news: “Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Monday warned of confrontation should the United States and NATO fail to give Russia security guarantees concerning its eastern expansion, the RIA news agency reported”.
Officials and analysts in Washington and Europe, and even people close to the Kremlin in Moscow, admit Putin’s true intentions with Ukraine remain a mystery.
Ms Stanovaya founder of the political analysis firm R.Politik said: “Even if Putin gets something from the West, serious talks or discussions about guarantees – will that be enough for Putin?”
According to Ms Stanovaya, everything Mr Putin has done as president “has been about fighting Nato expansion.” She added: “So now he thinks it’s either now or never.”
People do not seem to be aware that the clouds of war between the superpowers and, potentially, a nuclear holocaust are gathering in the horizon at a time when the massive peace and nuclear disarmament movement that used to be active in the UK and the USA and across Europe seems to be in decline.
Our feature photograph: Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Ryabkov attending a P5 NPT conference in Beijing.
