Oct. 10—In response to the terrorist attack on the Kerch Strait bridge, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a series of missile strikes across Ukraine, to deal a blow to infrastructure required to prosecute the war (and to warn of other potential targets—such as the SBU), to send a message that attacks on Russia itself will absolutely not be tolerated. If a tit-for-tat escalatory response continues, billions could perish in a nuclear exchange.
Consider two developments regarding the attacks on the Kerch Strait bridge and Nord Stream pipelines that point to the intention by NATO to provoke an escalatory response.
First, documents and emails received by the Grayzone, if authentic, show planning worked out for British intelligence officials on ways to strike at Russia from a maritime standpoint, including … destroying the Kerch Strait bridge. Although the method described in the British publication differs from that used in the October 8 terrorist attack, the documents underscore the escalatory nature of British planning during the same month that Boris Johnson inflicted himself on Kiev in a visit designed to call off the negotiations that had been proceeding towards a negotiated settlement.
Second, a Gazprom spokesman appeared on Russian television Rossiya-24 to revisit the discovery in 2015 of an explosive device found during a routine visual inspection of the Nord Stream pipeline. He revealed that the munition—documented in contemporary press releases as having been cleared with cooperation by the Swedish Navy—was a NATO unmanned underwater vehicle, specifically a “Seafox” mine-clearing device.
Recall that the BALTOPS naval “exercises” conducted in the Baltic Sea this summer included extensive use of such unmanned underwater vehicles, with a special emphasis on those used for clearing mines. Can such equipment also be used to place explosives?
On October 6, Joe Biden admitted that we are facing potential nuclear Armageddon, similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and asked what Putin’s off-ramp is.
But in the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was an existential threat to the United States, and it was Khrushchev who compromised, accepting U.S. agreements never to invade Cuba and to remove nuclear missiles from Turkey in exchange for evacuating the Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Today, reasons Ray McGovern, it is Russia that is facing an absolute existential threat, against which it has no choice but to defend itself. Claims that Russia’s off-ramp is simply to leave Ukraine are absurd, as the existential security concerns that prompted the special military operation in the first place will not have been addressed.
The off-ramp is open to NATO. Pressure must rapidly be brought to bear upon NATO countries to force a policy of détente and negotiations, accompanied with a security architecture based on development, stability, the advantage of the other, and a rejection of such mental pollution as Malthusian population-reduction.
In this endeavor all citizens of the world can participate.
