Director of Russian research center and advisor to Putin Suslov: “we are at war against NATO”
“The Russian army is not fighting against Ukraine but against NATO, which not only delivers weapons and ammunition, but provides valuable intelligence information.” To say this in an interview with Corriere della Sera is Dmitry Suslov, director of the Center for European and International Studies in Moscow, one of the closest think tanks to the Kremlin. “It is NATO that fires on Russian troops, through its weapons operated by the Ukrainians,” says the adviser, who adds: “Everyone in Russia is convinced that we are fighting a war against the West”.
Suslov reveals that “in the Kremlin there are currently two schools of thought and the president has not yet chosen”. The first calls it “maximalist” and plans to “inflict a heavy defeat on Ukraine in the Donbass and then occupy the remaining southern part of the country”. The second “to which I belong” – reveals the director – believes that this path “would require much more resources”. “After the victory in Donbass we should conclude a peace agreement with Ukraine”, based on the terms of the original Russian offer which include, among others, the “neutrality” and “demilitarization” of Kiev.
The United States, underlines Suslov, should “publicly say that Kiev will never be part of NATO”. However, there are Sweden and Finland that aim to enter it. “If they enter, we will respond by targeting nuclear weapons at them too,” assures the Kremlin adviser. Even if he, he specifies, “nobody wants the Third World War”. On the Moscow strategy, “there is no doubt that regime change was in the original plans of the invasion”, but “the Ukrainian army put up an impressive resistance, aided massively by the West,” notes Suslov.