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As I have consistently warned, it is only a matter of time before Putin’s never-ending war spirals out of control. That time is now.
The war has widened far from Donbass into Russian cities–Belgorod from which there have been evacuations, Tula, Kalunga, Bryansk, and Moscow–and military bases, oil refineries, and concert halls. The attacks are mainly defeated by Russian air defense, but the attacks show that the conflict has spread beyond Donbas into Russia. NATO satellites and personnel are providing the intelligence for Ukraine’s attacks on Russia. NATO members have announced that most NATO members already have troops serving various capacities in Ukraine.
There is a perceived NATO force buildup around Russia. American tanks and armored vehicles have been sent to Greek ports. See this.
In Romania the largest military base in Europe is being built near the border with Ukraine. See this.
Romanian soldiers together with their American instructors are conducting exercises with Moldavian soldiers, possibly with the intent of occupying Transnistria, a breakaway province in which 2,000 Russian troops guard a large arms depot from Soviet days. See this. There are indications that the US and NATO may move soldiers into Odessa in order to prevent Russian military support to Transnistria and to save Ukraine’s last port on the Black Sea. A move of NATO forces into Odessa could be part of a general move of NATO soldiers into Western Ukraine.
Remember that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently declared that Ukraine for certain would be incorporated into NATO and that the process is underway. Both the occupation of Odessa by NATO forces and Ukraine’s membership in NATO are Putin red lines that he would have to enforce or be discredited in the eyes of Russia and the world.
These facts indicate that Macron, the French president, was not speaking out of turn when he said that it is necessary to save the West from a shattering defeat that would destroy its prestige by sending NATO and French troops to Ukraine. As I warned early on, prestige gets involved in conflicts, and the conflicts spin out of control. To avoid this, Putin needed to use sufficient force to immediately terminate the conflict. This failure has brought on wider war.
Don’t be fooled that these expensive developments are just a bluff to force Putin into a peace deal favorable to Ukraine. These are moves toward general war.
It is a war that Putin has brought on by trying to avoid it.
As I recently wrote, Putin has a very short time in which to end Ukraine’s resistance before he finds Russia in war with the West.
Note: Geoffrey Pyatt, a US State Department official who conspired with Victoria Nuland to install a puppet government in Ukraine following Washington’s overthrow of the elected government, has announced that the US government intends to prevent Russia’s Arctic development of liquid natural gas. “Our goal is to ensure that Arctic LNG i2 is dead in the water.”
Sounds like another Nord Stream Pipeline event is being planned. Will Putin for a third time after the pipeline and Crocus refuse to name Washington as the perpetrator?
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: UK instructors train Ukrainian marines as part of Operation Orbital in Odessa, Ukraine in January 2019. Image: Ukrainian Naval Forces
