‘Obama has a much weaker hand in Ukraine crisis than before’
There are a lot of voices now coming out of various states, even the US and the UK, saying that sanctions and threats towards Russia are counterproductive, Lawrence Freeman, editor of the Intelligence Review magazine, told RT.
RT:US has said Russia should refrain from
judgment until the Slavyansk probe is over but activists say the
attackers were dressed in Right Sector gear. Surely there are
some conclusions to be made?
Lawrence Freeman: If you start from strategic
sphere down here what is going on is the attempts by certain
people in Ukraine and outside Ukraine, particularly one by the
British Empire crown, to start the confrontation with Russia. And
all the evidence that so far we have is merely not conclusive is
that the Right Sector, the neo-Nazi elements were involved, and
that this is a violation of the agreement that was just worked
out last week, prior to Easter, and the attempt is to try to
provoke Russia into a response that would just fire a larger war
which so far the Russians haven’t, and it appears that Obama now
has a much weaker hand that he had earlier.
RT:Joe Biden is set to arrive in Ukraine in
a matter of hours. Is the timing of the visit significant in your
view?
LF: I don’t think so. As I said what is driving
the policy is the fact that the Russian and the Chinese and
Eurasian countries are moving into direction of development,
growth and economic orientation to infrastructure and new
technology. The West is in the process of dying, suffocating from
its own collapse of financial system. So the idea is to break the
will of Russia in particular so that they would submit to these
operations, there would be no one against them. But the
government in Kiev was set up by the US and used Nazis and
right-wing fascists to create a coup. And until that problem is
resolved you are not going to see significant change in Ukraine
right now.
RT:Just days after the Geneva communiqué
was issued, five people were killed in Slavyansk. Is it fair to
say the talks haven't exactly changed anything on the
ground?
LF: I think the inclusion in the communiqué that
militia have to be disarmed was very significant. The Kiev
government, illegal government, if they do not disarm the Right
Sector and other Nazis that are inside their own National Guard,
then they are going to be exposed and they are going to be held
responsible. That was a positive aspect. There are a lot of
voices now coming out of Germany, in particular. Former foreign
ministers of the country, Chancellors, Schröder, and military
leaders are all saying: “We should not push Russia any
further. It’s counterproductive to wound this consent attack on
Russia including the expansion of ballistic missile
defense.” And then others are saying in the US and Great
Britain that it could lead to war because Russia will not accept
it. So I think the Obama Administration and the British Empire
behind them are in a weaker position at the moment.
RT:Moscow says Kiev isn't doing anything to
control the radicals – can they control them?
LF: They will have to make a fundamental change
in the government, because the government was brought in by the
so-called Maidan group which was the former Nazi-fascist parties
and the United Ukraine. These were the forces that overthrew the
government and ousted the former president. And therefore they
are in a very tough position because they are dependent on these
forces, these individuals make up sections in the parliament,
themselves representatives. And therefore they would have to deal
with this crisis in their own government. And they are in a very
weak economic situation. They depend on help from Russia, and the
US and the West are going to give them very little. The IMF is
going to take control of the Ukrainian economy and the IMF will
further destroy it as it has the economies of Greece, Spain,
Portugal and others in Europe.
RT:In March, Barack Obama said the US has no
national interest in Ukraine – so why the high-profile visitors
at such a sensitive time?
LF: In fact, what we should have been doing for
a long time is working in a relationship with Russia and China
for further economic development, space technology, space
defense, fusion energy. This would be a natural thing to do.
Instead what we have is a geopolitical crowd centered in the City
of London and Wall Street who are trying to encircle and weaken
Russia and China so that they would submit to the kind of IMF
economic policy that we see. The national interest of the US
would be to work with Russia, to work with President Putin, to
work with President Xi Jinping, to develop the planet. Instead,
we are behaving as a stooge of a British Empire to try to start a
war with Russia and China, and that really is the dangerous point
at which we are right now.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.