Will the NATO war games on Russia’s borders trigger a nuclear response? Discussion on Iran’s Press TV
Yesterday evening’s brief interview on Iran’s Press TV alongside panelist Don Debar from the USA focused on one question: what risks to the peace are presented by the ongoing massive NATO military exercises at Russia’s borders in which more than 90,000 soldiers are participating and which Moscow considers a provocation.
I say here directly that if the exercises were to be turned into an actual attack on Russia to distract Moscow from the battleground in Donbas then I envision the Russian response to be a strike with tactical nuclear weapons that would decimate the NATO forces instantaneously. Unlike my fellow panelist, I do not see such a Russian response, which is clearly laid out in Russian warnings over the past six months or more, as triggering a full scale nuclear war, because Washington knows full well that whatever damage it may do to Russia in such an exchange, there will be nothing but ashes left of the USA, with no one left to vote for Joe Biden in November.
It is regrettable that our interview was cut short for the sake of live coverage of an Iranian diplomatic mission in Africa, because I intended to move the discussion on to the question of why NATO is staging such a provocation now, just as why there were 4 ATACMS long range missiles launched a day ago by the Ukrainians for the Russians to shoot down over Crimea and why there is talk in Kiev of blowing up the Kerch (Crimea) bridge as an urgent mission. The reason for all of these intended acts of aggression and terror is to distract world attention from the ongoing daily Russian advance and Ukrainian retreat along the line of contact in the Donetsk region.
Some in the West are characterizing the Russian moves on the battlefield as the prelude to a massive Russian offensive in the coming month or two. Others use these facts to shame U.S. legislators for holding back their approval of the 61 billion dollar aid package to Kiev for so long, leaving the Ukrainians short of artillery shells and air defense equipment. However, a better explanation is that Kiev made a strategic blunder over the past year by placing so many resources in Avdeevka, which they and their NATO advisers believed was impregnable, and did not do what they should have done, namely build solid second and tertiary lines of defense to the west of Avdeevka. The Russians now are simply pressing their advantage and putting the Ukrainian forces on the run. In my next installment of Travel Notes, I will explain who was the author of this interpretation.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
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