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Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat, said in an interview with Newsweek magazine that the U.S. is teetering on the brink of becoming a party to the Ukraine War over its support of Kyiv in its effort against Russia.
“Today, western states funnel weapons and military hardware into the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, and train Ukraine’s armed forces,” he said. “NATO and U.S. weapons are being used to fire at Russian territory bordering Ukraine, killing civilians there. The Pentagon does not hide that it is providing Kyiv with intelligence and target designations for strikes. We’ve recorded the presence of American mercenaries and advisors on the battlefield.”
TRENDPOST: Gerald Celente often paraphrases Matthew 7:16, “By their deeds you will know them.” The West has provided Ukraine with billions in advanced weaponry and even more billions to stabilize its economy while Ukrainians carry out NATO’s dirty work and fight Russia on the battlefields.
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the historic amount of support that Ukraine received from the West. President Biden continues to get away with it because we have a Presstitute corps that puts out for their corporate overlords and government whore masters. (See “HEY STUPID! PROPAGANDA NETWORKS WILL TELL YOU ‘WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT UKRAINE” 1 Mar 2022, “BIDEN KEEPS WAR DRUMS BEATING, ANNOUNCES ANOTHER $1B IN WEAPONS FOR UKRAINE” 21 Jun 2022 and “WEAPONS POURING INTO UKRAINE, NO TALK OF PEACE, JUST MORE AMMUNITION” 12 Apr 2022.)
Lavrov’s comments echo what Russian President Vladimir Putin has said about Western interference. Last month, Putin said the U.S. is contributing to the war effort in hopes to keep it going.
“They need conflicts to retain their hegemony,” Putin said in a speech on international security in Moscow. “That’s why they have turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder. The situation in Ukraine shows that the United States is trying to drag the conflict out, and it acts in exactly the same way trying to fuel conflicts in Asia, Africa and Latin America.”
Sergey Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, told TASS, the Russian news outlet, that the Kremlin it’s not only fighting Ukraine on the battlefield but the collective West.
“As you talk about this, we mean not only the weapons that are being supplied in huge quantities,” he said. “Naturally, we find ways to counter these weapons. We have in mind, of course, the western systems that there exist: communication systems, information processing systems, reconnaissance systems, and satellite intelligence systems.”
Failure of Diplomacy
Lavrov told the magazine that Moscow and Kyiv nearly reached an agreement weeks after the invasion occurred, but claimed the U.S. “forbade” Ukraine from conducting further dialogue with Russia.
A spokesperson from the State Department told The Trends Journal that Lavrov’s claim is nonsense.
“Diplomacy is the only way to end this conflict, but Russia has shown no signs that it is willing to seriously engage in negotiations,” the spokesperson said. “So, we are focused on strengthening Ukraine’s hand as much as possible on the battlefield so that when the time comes, Ukraine has as much leverage as possible at the negotiating table.”
An article in Foreign Affairs, penned by Russian experts Fiona Hill and Angela Stent, noted that Moscow and Kyiv “appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement” in April 2022. The deal would have involved Ukraine promising Russia it will not join NATO, and, in turn, Russian forces would head back to their positions before the invasion and Ukraine would receive security guarantees from other countries.
Ukrainska Pravda focused on a meeting in April in Kyiv between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The paper reported that Johnson had two messages for Zelensky. He said Putin cannot be trusted because he is a war criminal, and that the West was not ready for a peaceful settlement.
The paper noted that days after Johnson left Ukraine, Putin announced that talks with Ukraine “had turned into a dead end.”
In April, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters near the Polish border with Ukraine that the U.S.’s goal is to see Russia’s military capabilities degraded to a degree that it “can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. His comments came weeks after President Joe Biden said Putin cannot remain in power.
“It is objectively not possible to maintain normal communication with Washington” after its stated goal is to achieve a “strategic defeat of Russia.”
Lavrov said the U.S. is using Ukraine as a springboard to contain Russia. He stood by Putin’s stated goal that Russia will demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. He said the goals will be achieved, no matter how long it takes.
TRENDPOST: Last week we reported on Putin, once again, saying that he wants a swift end to the conflict but claimed Kyiv refuses to negotiate for peace. (See “PUTIN SAYS UKRAINE WANTS WAR, WON’T NEGOTIATE FOR PEACE.”)
Putin said at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, that Kyiv has “rejected the negotiations process and stated that it wants to achieve its goal by military means, on the battlefield.”
We have long noted that the only reason this war has lasted as long as it has is because of the West’s desire to see a weakened Russia, but despite the mainstream media narrative that Russia is losing, that has not happened.
Indeed, Moscow controls some 20 percent of Ukraine, and there is never a mention of that in the Western media.
Putin announced an escalation to the conflict last week when he ordered a partial mobilization of his reservists.
Mark F. Cancian, a former Marine colonel and current senior adviser for the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told The Trends Journal that part of Putin’s strategy is to get to the winter and hope Europeans get cold enough to pressure their government to urge Ukraine to negotiate. It will be about this time that Russian reservists will be ready to fight.