Global Research

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate This Article button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday called for NATO to launch a “preventative strike” on Russia to prevent Moscow from using nuclear weapons, a move that would almost certainly spark World War III and possibly nuclear war.

“What should NATO do? Exclude the possibility of use of nuclear weapons by Russia,” Zelensky said via video link at an event hosted by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank.

“But the most important, I’m again addressing the international community, is how it was before February 24: preventative strikes, so that they know what will happen if they use [a nuke],” he said. “And not the opposite, waiting for Russia to strike and then saying ‘oh, that’s how you are, now you can take it from us.’ Reconsider how you apply pressure, the order of application.”

The Kremlin jumped on the comments and said that Zelensky was trying to spark a world war. Ukrainian officials tried to downplay what Zelensky said, with his advisor Mykhailo Podolyak insisting that Zelensky “said nothing about a preventive nuclear strike” on Russia.

Serhii Nikiforov, Zelensky’s press secretary, also said that the Ukrainian leader was not calling for a nuclear strike and claimed he was talking about other actions, such as sanctions. “The president was speaking about the period before February 24. Preventative measures should have been used at that time to prevent Russia from unleashing a war. I will remind you that the only measures discussed at that time were preventative sanctions,” he said.

But Zelensky has previously called for direct US and NATO military intervention in the conflict. Earlier in the war, Zelensky pushed hard for the Western powers to impose a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine, which would have required shooting down Russian warplanes and bombing surface-to-air missile systems inside Russia.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image is from OneWorld

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute