As the narrative surrounding the West’s reckless proxy-war in Ukraine collapses, some European governments are preparing to double down, including potentially on their own citizens. RT Germany published a report of a recent military exercise in Austria called “Schutzschild 24,” which takes up the hypothetical case wherein Austrian citizens who sympathize with a foreign aggressor, take up arms against the state and need to be forcibly suppressed. The parallels to today’s conflict in Ukraine are unmistakable. Here is the (machine-translated) description listed on the Austrian armed forces (Bundesheer) website for the exercise: “Militarily neutral Austria pledges moral support to a state attacked in violation of international law and participates in sanctions. At the same time, activists who sympathize with the aggressor are forming. Armed underground militias are beginning to infiltrate and destabilize our society…. As a result, the schedule of the exercise provides for parts of the population to be manipulated by external influence. Negative impact: In selected regions of our country, state control is lost for a short time. The task of the Armed Forces is now to counteract this dire scenario quickly, decisively and effectively, in cooperation with other emergency organizations.”
The exercises were carried out from June 10-21, and involved 7,500 troops from Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Croatia—one of the largest exercises in the country in recent years. The Austrian Bundesheer website gave detailed descriptions and videos of the maneuvers, which included taking back towns which had been occupied by armed insurgents, conducting vehicle searches of potentially radicalized or armed civilians, and even preventing the use of a nuclear “dirty bomb” by the insurgents.
RT, quoting Austrian news website tkp, which originally publicized the event, writes: “This will require war mobilization in Europe and also in Austria.... The democratic opposition in the country is becoming a dangerous enemy and should be suppressed…. Such a maneuver is only a ‘foretaste’ of what is in store for us.’”
