"Rússia sob ataque dos EUA.
Vai usar todos meios e resistir".
Vai usar todos meios e resistir".
"Provocaram crise na Ucrania , e nos acusam de causá-la".
"É loucura tentar chantagear a Rússia".
In a series of recently published interviews, President Vladimir Putin (kremlin.ru, October 15), Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (Interfax, October 15) and national security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, October 15) have outlined Moscow’s strategic vision of the world after the Ukrainian crisis, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Moscow-inspired proxy war in the southeastern Donbas region of Ukraine, and resulting punitive sanctions imposed by the West.
The US is now seen in Moscow as irredeemable and determined to destroy Russia, which must resist by reinforcing and rearming its military, investing in technological independence (the so-called import replacement or “importozamescheniye”), and by building a world-wide anti-US alliance. To that effect, over the past year, Moscow has been strengthening its ties with Beijing. In particular, Russia has been opening itself up to Chinese investment, seeking much needed hard currency liquidity in the Chinese banking system, as well as looking for Chinese technologies (including civilian, double-use and maybe eventually military) to replace those technologies, materials, components and investments that are not forthcoming from the West because of punitive sanctions. Patrushev, in his interview, confirmed that Russian strategic planners see in the future a divided multipolar world with increasingly scarce natural resources (oil, gas, food, clear water) where Russia could dominate resource-poor Europe (see EDM, October 9). Moreover, Washington is believed to have deliberately provoked the Ukrainian crisis to reinforce the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and blackmail its allies into full submission. As Patrushev argues, Russia, in turn, must build alliances with non-European emerging powers like China, while working to undermine the Transatlantic link to liberate Europeans from US domination.
In a series of recently published interviews, President Vladimir Putin (kremlin.ru, October 15), Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (Interfax, October 15) and national security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, October 15) have outlined Moscow’s strategic vision of the world after the Ukrainian crisis, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Moscow-inspired proxy war in the southeastern Donbas region of Ukraine, and resulting punitive sanctions imposed by the West.
The view from Moscow is uninviting—A new cold war with the West is in the making; Russia is under attack and will use all means at its disposal to resist, including the nuclear option. Putin accused Washington of deliberately provoking the Ukraine crisis by supporting extreme nationalists in Kyiv, which in turn ignited a civil war. “Now they [the United States] accuse us of causing this crisis,” exclaimed Putin, “It is madness to blackmail Russia; let them remember, a discord between major nuclear powers may undermine strategic stability” (kremlin.ru, October 15). Under mounting Western pressure this year, Russian leaders have been repeatedly and unambiguously reminding the West of the ultimate weapon at Moscow’s disposal—nuclear mutual assured destruction. The Russian military is also rearming and conducting massive exercises, preparing for a possible global war. The consensus view in Moscow within the political, military and intelligence community is that relations with the United States are beyond repair and, quoting Medvedev, there is no possibility of any new US-Russian “reset.” Moscow has come to believe that there is no possibility of any genuine détente with Washington until 2020 at the earliest.
"Rússia se prepara para guerra com EUA em todas as frentes".
Indeed, National Security Council Secretary Patrushev’s interview in the official government-published Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper has the title: “Second Cold War.” Patrushev openly describes the US as Russia’s eternal foe and accuses Washington of planning for many decades to fully isolate Moscow and deprive it of any influence in its former dominions in the post-Soviet space. Patrushev announced (which seems to be an officially held policy opinion) that the US is today fulfilling a strategic plan to marginalize and destroy Russia—a strategy that he says was initiated in the 1970s by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the then–United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter.
