In my last blog entry (20/11/2024 11:25 GMT) I stated that,
"Putin is opening the "Pandora's Box" of WW3.".
"Vladimir Putin has threatened the UK with strikes from a “new” kind of missile - as Russia warned Britain it was now “directly involved” in the war.
It comes in a week where Russia has repeatedly stoked fears that the war could extend beyond Ukraine - dragging Western allies including the UK in to the fighting." (Mirror: 21 November 2024 : 21:26 GMT) (my emphasis)
"Britain is now "directly involved" in the Ukraine war after its Storm Shadow missiles were used to strike targets inside Russia, according to Moscow's ambassador.
Speaking to Sky News, Andrei Kelin also warned the West to carefully consider the lower bar Russia has established for using nuclear weapons." (Sky News: Friday 22 November 2024 07:49, UK) (my emphasis)
He further stated what Putin threatened viz.,
"We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities," Mr Putin said." (ibid Sky News)
And whilst the UK and France have stated that,
"The UK and France will do "everything that is necessary" to support Ukraine and achieve lasting peace, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said in a newspaper piece co-written with his French counterpart, Jean-Noel Barrot, external." (BBC News: 22 November 2024) (my emphasis),
whilst German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz (left) is maintaining that,
"‘I refused to supply Taurus to Ukraine' – Scholz is trying to gain votes, telling the Germans that they are not in danger of the Hazel Bush [Putin's recent ICBM missile used on Ukraine in Dnipro].
"Anyone who gives audacious interviews and makes audacious demands should understand that when you provide assistance to Ukraine, you need to do it judiciously, to do so in order to prevent the war from escalating into a war between Russia and NATO." (Pravda EN: 22 November 2024) (my emphasis)
As I wrote in my blog entry of 18 November 2024,
"This 'threat' of Putin scared German Chancellor Scholtz to such an extent that he steadfastly refused suppplying Ukraine with German Taurus missiles and, more recently, sought to appease Putin by having a tête-à-tête with him. (Remember the former Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel (right), and Putin's 'Minsk Agreements' in 2014 and 2015? )
We should not forget that Putin's prints are all over the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Agreements, together with those of Angela Merkel.
As the Economist wrote in 2014,
"When Germans add the word Versteher (one who understands) to a term, they generally mix flattery with irony. So a Frauenversteher (one who understands women) is usually a man who boasts excessively about his knowledge of the opposite sex. The label is now being attached to so-called Russlandversteher or Putinversteher: members of the elite or intelligentsia who gush with empathy for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, on talk shows, in journals and at dinner parties." (The Economist: May 8th 2014)
Fast forward to 2024 and the "Putinversteher" mentality is still alive and well in Germany.
Now that Putin has used an ICBM in all but name in Ukraine, as Matthew Dooley (left) reports,
"According to North Korean state media, Kim [Jon Un] (right) said: "Never before have the warring parties on the Korean peninsula faced such a dangerous and acute confrontation that it could escalate into the most destructive thermonuclear war."
The fiery rhetoric comes just hours after Vladimir Putin announced the test of a new Russian missile on Ukraine. Ukraine claimed the weapon was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). However, Pentagon officials believe the weapon was more likely an intermediate-range ballistic missile." (Express: 22 November 2024) (my emphasis)
Putin has opened the "Pandora's Box" of WW3.
No comments:
Post a Comment