Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in remarks published Monday alleged that the United States is fueling escalation in Ukraine as the US is the war’s “main beneficiary”. He said it is Washington and NATO that turned Ukraine into a global crisis by seeking to bleed Russia and achieve Western victory on the battlefield.
“The actions of countries of the collective West and [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is controlled by them, confirm the global nature of the Ukrainian crisis,” Lavrov said in a fresh interview with state-run TASS news agency.
“It is no secret that the strategic goal of the US and its NATO allies is victory over Russia on the battlefield as a mechanism for significantly weakening or even destroying our country,” he said.
Lavrov explained that the “main beneficiary” of the Ukraine war is the United States, as a main “geopolitical goal” remains “breaking traditional Russian-European ties to further subjugate Europe.”
“Our opponents will just do about anything to achieve this goal,” he stressed, explaining that this is what’s behind the Ukraine crisis increasingly sliding from proxy war into a ‘hot conflict’ where nuclear-armed superpowers are inching toward a direct clash.
The top Russian diplomat also pointed out that American defense contractors in league with the Pentagon plan on raking in cash from the war for “years to come”:
“The US is doing everything to prolong the conflict and make it more violent. The Pentagon is openly planning orders for the American defense industry for years to come, constantly raising the bar for military spending … and demanding the same from other members of the anti-Russian alliance,” Lavrov said.
Likely in the forefront of Lavrov’s mind in giving this stark assessment that strongly points to escalation on the horizon is US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s “weaken Russia” statement from last April.
To a large degree, Lavrov’s fresh words and perspective have already been justified and proven accurate by past and more recent remarks by US defense officials and planners. On the energy front, Europe being forced to wean itself off Russian natural gas has at the same time been widely perceived as a huge “win” for the US energy sector.
Austin’s prior remarks, which came a mere few months after the Feb.24 Russian invasion, indicated of long-term US policy that “we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
And as CNN underscored at the time while quoting a National Security Council spokesperson in affirmation of Austin’s comments, the Biden White House goal is “to make this invasion a strategic failure for Russia.”
“We want Ukraine to win,” the spokesperson said in the prior comments. “One of our goals has been to limit Russia’s ability to do something like this again, as Secretary Austin said. That’s why we are arming the Ukrainians with weapons and equipment to defend themselves from Russian attacks, and it’s why we are using sanctions and export controls that are directly targeted at Russia’s defense industry to undercut Russia’s economic and military power to threaten and attack its neighbors.”
And meanwhile, going back to the archives…
Back in 2014, John McCain fully predicted Putin's next moves.
"Not to provoke Putin is to show weakness, which will 100% provoke Putin"
"A developing and democratic Ukraine is a threat to Putin's power"
"He will try to cut more Ukraine and then Baltics" pic.twitter.com/CyOXLvZl1Y— Maksym Borodin (@adnashmyash) December 26, 2022
