by Drago Bosnic, published on Global Research, September 13, 2024
When the special military operation (SMO) was launched to end the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin was very clear about the direct involvement of any third parties.
This has prevented the political West from taking direct action in support of the Kiev regime, but it still didn’t prevent it from doing everything else in its power to avert the complete defeat of the puppets in Kiev. In fact, they even sent former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to sabotage the already signed peace deal that would’ve ended the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict a couple of weeks after the SMO started.
Several high-ranking Western officials admitted this in the last two and a half years, including monstrous war criminals such as Victoria Nuland. Even former top-ranking Neo-Nazi junta officials such as Oleksiy Arestovych lamented that the deal was beneficial to both sides, but the US-led political West had other plans.
However, while making sure as many Ukrainians as possible die a pointless death in a perfectly avoidable war with a military superpower, NATO also keeps trying to probe Russia’s reaction to various levels of indirect involvement of third parties. This includes everything from sabotage operations and ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) support for the Kiev regime to terrorism and guiding NATO-sourced weapons to kill Russian soldiers and even civilians in some cases. Expectedly, Moscow is furious, but it’s still trying to keep its cool, as a direct response could easily result in global thermonuclear annihilation. However, Russian patience is regularly mistaken for weakness in the political West, which is why they keep sending ever more advanced weapons to the Neo-Nazi junta. After initially giving mixed signals about this, it seems the political West has now decided to take things up a notch (or a thousand).
Namely, both the United States and United Kingdom have given the go-ahead for the use of their long-range missiles against targets deeper within Russia. For Washington DC, those are longer-range ATACMS missiles, while it’s the “Storm Shadow” air-launched cruise missile for London. In previous months, UK PM Keir Starmer said that he supports such strikes,only for the British military to deny such reports. The US is doing something similar, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin telling Zelensky that long-range strikes “won’t be a game changer” against Moscow.
Perhaps the political West is trying to use these sorts of intentionally misleading and contradictory statements as a Pilatian way to avoid responsibility for any escalation. However, President Putin just made it very clear that such a strategy is futile and that NATO will be held accountable. Namely, in a short interview with Russian state media, he actually said there will be a direct response.
“What we are seeing is an attempt to use a straw man argument. Because this is not a question of whether the Kiev regime is allowed or not allowed to strike targets on Russian territory. It is already carrying out strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles and other means. But using Western-made long-range precision weapons is a completely different story,” Putin said, adding: “The fact is that – I have mentioned this, and any expert, both in our country and in the West, will confirm this – the Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites. This is the first point.”
“The second point – perhaps the most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not,” he continued and concluded: “If this decision is made, it will mean nothing short of direct involvement – it will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically. This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
⚡️The use of Western high-precision long-range weapons against Russia will mean direct participation of NATO countries in military operations in Ukraine — Putin
The Ukrainian army cannot strike with modern Western-made high-precision long-range systems, said President Vladimir… pic.twitter.com/0kKBAzsbw7
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) September 12, 2024
This is the message, the be-all and end-all warning that should be taken as seriously as possible. In the last two and a half years, Russia has drastically changed its long-range strike strategy, as well as its nuclear doctrine, including recently, putting emphasis on its unrivaled strategic arsenal. The Kremlin simply needs to be ready to use its world-class thermonuclear weapons to secure basic Russian national interests. On the other hand, this is yet another neocolonial war for the political West, which simply wants to continue its parasitical existence at the expense of the entire world’s peace, prosperity and sustainable development. In order to put a final stop to this, Russia is working together with other superpowers, such as China, and various regional actors, such as Iran and North Korea. At Moscow’s helm, Putin is critically important to the rest of the globe as one of the leaders of the free world, which is why the political West even tried to assassinate him.
In fact, only two days after the attempt on his life, Foreign Policy, one of the most prominent outlets of the mainstream propaganda machine even published a piece titled “Would the US Consider Assassinating Putin?”, further confirming what Pepe Escobar, a colossus in geopolitical analytics, told me during an online meeting concerning this and several other important topics. It is only thanks to Putin’s unrivaled patience, self-control and cool-headedness did we not see monstrosities such as the RS-28 “Sarmat” launched immediately at all major NATO capitals. However, it seems the political West is determined to make sure exactly this happens, as they keep poking the Bear and trying to force it to respond as violently as possible. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for… And indeed, if the US, UK and other pathologically Russophobic countries and entities keep doing this, the consequences might be global and permanent.
*Featured Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during the United Culture Forum at the Hermitage Hall, September 12, 2024, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Src: Getty Images. Cropped for header.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.