Ukrainian military observer on NATO’s war with Russia and nuclear threats - Radio NV video

The British newspaper The Telegraph has written that NATO is currently developing several land corridors to move American troops and armored vehicles across Europe to the front lines in the event of a major war with Russia. Is it really possible to say that the West has finally realized that Russia will not stop in Ukraine?

Every military is preparing for the worst. It doesn’t mean that Russia will start a war in Europe tomorrow, it doesn’t mean that the war will start in the next few days. But NATO has this very possibility in mind, and they are now developing plans on how to deploy American troops in Europe.

Because they are well aware that the United States, as the most important country of the alliance, will take part [in the fighting], and they will have to move troops to the European continent as soon as possible. That’s why they are making such plans now.

In principle, we can say yes: NATO has now begun to realize that war is on the horizon. And not necessarily that it will start, but we have to be prepared for the fact that it might start.

Do you see Europe preparing? Because it seems that when we talk about Central and Western Europe, in countries from France to Spain to Portugal, they don’t really believe in war.

Spain, through its leadership, is more or less actively supporting Germany, and that’s about it. Recently they have started to supply us again with air defense systems, and they used to support us. But it is quite possible that at the level of the civilians who live in these countries, the war is not really felt there.

They believe everything but that they will have to go to war tomorrow. This is perhaps felt more at the top, among the leadership of the countries, but ordinary people believe it less because they have some current problems, the need to earn money, children, families.

But the further east you go, the more this threat is felt. First of all these are the Baltic countries, Poland and the Czech Republic. That is, people there are more in the know, more aware that Russia may not stop.

The Russian MP Andrey Gurulyov suggested to drop a nuclear bomb on the Netherlands. How should the Netherlands react? Can we imagine that they see this as a threat?

This is a difficult question. For some reason I don’t think they will react in any particular way. Because there is a pool of Russian politicians, including Gurulyov (he was pushed down a bit with his rhetoric, but now he’s back up because it’s the season of nuclear threats in Russia), [former Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev, and a number of State Duma deputies, who like to threaten with nuclear weapons. And they come out when a situation arises that dictates the need for these threats.

And what is that situation? These are plans for the deployment of troops. That is the first thing. And the second is more specific things: the permission of Western countries for the Ukrainian army to attack the territory of the Russian Federation. So this is a new aspect, a new factor that is now forcing the Russians to respond with such aggressive rhetoric.

I think this is due to a combination of events: this material [about the development of land corridors for NATO troops], the permission to attack Russian territory, which is very effective in connection with the events around Kharkiv Oblast. All this leads to such aggressive rhetoric: Let’s attack the Netherlands, let’s attack the places where Western aid to Ukraine is concentrated.

All this has happened before. I don’t think there will be any specific reaction, actually. But we can point out this symptom.