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23 Apr, 2014 05:57

‘Obama has a much weaker hand in Ukraine crisis than before’

‘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.

People attend a funeral ceremony of men killed in a gunfight on April 20 in Slaviansk, April 22, 2014. (Reuters / Gleb Garanich)

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.

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