The Col. Cassad (in English) website has published a translation of an interview with the former SVR General Reshetnikov who heads a private Russian think tank. The main thread of it is about the Ukraine and what he perceives to be American intentions, to whit:
"they don't need a federal Ukraine, such a territory will be hard to control. It will be impossible to deploy their military bases, a new ABM echelon there. And there are such plans. From Lugansk and Kharkov tactical cruise missiles can reach behind the Urals, where our main nuclear deterrence forces are located. And they (i.e. ABM's) can hit silo-based and road-mobile ballistic missiles on the ascent trajectory with a 100% probability. Currently this area is not reachable by them neither from Poland nor from Turkey nor from the South-East Asia. This is the main goal. So the US will fight for Donbass to the last Ukrainian."
If this assessment of U.S. intentions is correct, and such bases in Eastern Ukraine will neutralise land based Russian nuclear assets , doesn't this imply that the Neoconservatives haven't given up on the "Project For A New American Century"? Should we assume Chinas land based nuclear deterrent is similarly neutralised?
Doesn't this mean that Russia is forced to choose between not defending the Novorussians, losing sovereignty and accepting a role in President Obamas words as a "Regional Power" or supporting them to the point of a confrontation with NATO, risking nuclear war?
Furthermore exactly who thinks time is, or is not, on their side? A colleague argues that Western sanctions will continue to weaken the Russian economy and that therefore time is not on Russias side. My own guess is that this is incorrect, and that the confrontation has galvanised both Russia and Chinas economies. If Washington also thinks the way I do then the next offensive in Ukraine, when it comes, may be an order of magnitude larger so as to secure a quick victory.
Where does this end? A mono polar American universe where corporations graze unstoppably over the planet to the detriment of almost all the population? A freedomised world full of love and peace?
http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com