When asked whether the next world war is already happening, Budanov answered in the affirmative and suggested it began in Ukraine. He added that it is impossible to predict the outcome of a conflict of this scope.
In February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the BBC that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has already started WWIII.
“I believe that Putin has already started it,” Zelenskyy said. “The question is how much territory he can seize and how to stop him. Russia wants to impose a different way of life on the world and change the life people chose for themselves.”
Fears that a third world war may have begun intensified
after the U.S.–Israeli operation against Iran. Diane Francis, editor of
Canada’s National Post and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the
conflict now involves about 20 countries. “So this is no longer an ‘excursion,’
as President Donald Trump said, but a world war,” she said.