Press TV
June 10, 2014
US, NATO not after solution in Ukraine: Analyst
Video
Press TV has interviewed Rick Rozoff from Stop NATO Network, Chicago, to get his views on NATO activities with regards to the current situation in Ukraine.
What follows is an approximate transcription of that interview:
Press TV: First of all, how should Russia respond to NATO’s provocative war game maneuvers?
Rozoff: Russia should have diplomatically and otherwise put a stop to NATO expansion at least a decade ago. That is, in 2004 the US-controlled military bloc absorbed seven new nations at one time; all of them in Eastern Europe, including the three former Soviet Baltic republics: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. And immediately afterwards, on US instigation, regular air patrols were started by NATO out of Lithuania, which have been occurring for over a decade now. A comparable air base has been upgraded by the US and NATO in Estonia, as well as Latvia so the entire Baltic region right now has been turned into a forward operating base if you will for NATO where regular war games are occurring in addition to the air patrols I am talking about. Russia should both, in the United Nations and in whichever other fora are available, demand an immediate cessation to NATO expansion and build-up along its Western borders, as well as initiating a call by other nations in the world for the abolition of NATO.
Press TV: Of course, there have been short negotiations between the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Europe. What is the likely hood that there could be a political solution to this crisis as opposed to a military solution?
Rozoff: That would assume that both sides want a political solution to the crisis and that is transparently not the case. The US and its NATO allies and its billionaire oligarch client – or puppet – Petro Poroshenko in Kiev have no desire whatsoever to resolve this amicably, quite the opposite. Mr. Poroshenko is conducting I believe day 55 of a military onslaught against his own citizens in the southeastern provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk.
That is, there is a full-fledged war being waged in Europe right now with the blessing, if not at the direction of the United States and NATO, so to suggest they want a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Ukraine is not the case whatsoever. In fact, they are hoping they can continue the military offensive to completion, which means really the extermination of anti-fascist elements in southeastern Ukraine.
Press TV: And of course, what are the chances that the West would abandon Ukraine if things don’t go as the West wants?
Rozoff: The US and its NATO allies announced formally in a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania six years ago, 2008, that both Ukraine and Georgia would become full members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and immediately after Georgia initiated a war with Russia, six years ago in 2008, the same year you will note, over South Ossetia. The US and NATO immediately stepped in and created entirely new partnership mechanisms for further integrating Ukraine into the North Atlantic bloc, so there is no indication whatsoever that the West has abandoned its plan to move NATO directly up to Russia’s western frontier along the Ukrainian border as well as consolidate the Black Sea, where the other littoral nations, except for Russia – I’m talking about Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey – are already members of NATO.
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