“In America, there is an unwillingness to recognize that over the past few decades, the West, led by Washington, has been rejecting Moscow’s outstretched hand of cooperation again and again.… Even the American military started to contemplate a nuclear conflict…. This is extremely short-sighted. America will not be able to sit it out across the ocean. A global nuclear catastrophe would affect everyone.” So warned Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov in an exclusive interview given to Tom O’Connor, Newsweek’s Senior Writer of Foreign Policy and Deputy Editor of National Security and Foreign Policy, shortly before Antonov returned to Moscow on Oct. 6, ending his seven years as ambassador to Washington.
To his credit, Newsweek’s O’Connor quoted extensively from Antonov in his Oct. 10 article on the interview, breaking through the oppressive press censorship of what Russian leaders are saying, and why. O’Connor also identified key points which led into the Ukraine-Russia conflict, which did not begin out of nowhere in February 2022. As for where things stand today, he quoted Antonov as saying:
“Washington is continuing a dangerous discussion about the possibility of giving Ukrainians a permission to strike deep into Russian territory with Western long-range missiles. They refuse to take into account the clear warnings of the President of the Russian Federation that a ‘green light’ for such attacks would mean NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict, with all the following conclusions on our part….
“The objective maximum task at this stage is to prevent the ties between two great powers and permanent members of the [UN] Security Council from finally plunging into an uncontrolled nosedive. Russia, as a responsible state, is not interested in such an extremely dangerous development of the situation….
