Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, warned in an interview with Newsweek yesterday that the Kyiv regime has plans to draw the U.S. into World War III. “We call on the curators of the Kyiv regime to exercise responsibility and exert influence on their ‘wards’ in order to avoid a large-scale catastrophe,” Antonov said. “Western ruling elites should understand that the failures on the battlefield make Kyiv eager to create a pretext for the deployment of the NATO contingent to Ukraine, thereby to inflate a regional conflict into World War III.”
“American and European citizens are hardly ready to march in orderly rows to the hell, into which the Zelenskyy government is dragging the entire planet,” he added.
“News reporters continue to pretend not to notice the obvious: from the very beginning of the special military operation, all the accusations of the Zelenskyy regime against us turned out to be sabotage operations of Kyiv itself,” Antonov said, citing the alleged Bucah massacre, the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, and last week’s missile attack on Kramatorsk. However, the difference now, he said, was that “this time stakes have grown substantially: Europe’s nuclear security is at risk.”
Antonov dismissed any statements suggesting “that Russia is preparing a provocation against the nuclear power plant it controls” as “absurd.” He noted the presence of Russian and International Atomic Energy Agency personnel as well as the safeguards shielding the plant’s nuclear reactors. “Russian citizens work at the facility. IAEA experts, who cannot but know who is shelling the ZNPP, are present there on a rotational basis, too,” Antonov said. “The reactors are protected.”
That being said, he pointed out that “besides power units there are more vulnerable infrastructure facilities: cooling systems, storage sites for fresh fuel and nuclear waste.” He warned that “any projectile hit is extremely dangerous as radiation contamination of vast territories can follow.”
Antonov also tied the dueling narratives surrounding the situation at Zaporozhye to the upcoming NATO summit to be held in Lithuania, where the topic of Ukraine and potential ways to increase support for Kyiv are expected to dominate discussions. “Observers are actually playing along with the criminal intentions of the Ukrainian authorities ahead of the NATO summit,” Antonov said.
These intentions, according to Antonov, were “to use a terrorist attack in order to slander Russia as a ‘nuclear terrorist,’ to divert attention from the failed counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which the West has invested enormous resources” and “to use provocation so as to draw the Alliance directly into the conflict.” (https://washington.mid.ru/en/press-centre/news/ambassador_anatoly_antonov_exclusively_for_newsweek_on_the_us_media_reports_about_the_alleged_threat/)
For its report, Newsweek solicited a statement from the State Department, which backs the Kyiv regime’s claims against Russia. “Russia has been playing a very dangerous game with its military seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe,” a State Department spokesperson said. “Radiation knows no boundaries, and an incident could have impacts beyond the immediate vicinity of Zaporozhye.”
The State Department spokesperson further warned that “Russia’s militarization of ZNPP, including the emplacement of fighting positions on top of reactor buildings, jeopardizes not only nuclear safety and security, but also the lives of Ukrainian staff who operate the plant’s facilities.”
The remarks came with a warning. “Russia’s leadership should think long and hard about whether they want to risk causing a nuclear catastrophe,” the spokesperson asserted. “Because if that happens—the international community will absolutely hold Russia to account.”
“We continue to call on Russia to withdraw its military and civilian personnel from ZNPP, to return full control of the plant to the competent Ukrainian authorities, and to refrain from taking any actions that could result in a nuclear incident at the plant,” the spokesperson added. (https://www.newsweek.com/russia-warns-ukraine-united-states-world-war-iii-1811408)
