Don’t Think Russia will Cower behind the Broom

Even in the face of its impudent crimes of late, Vladimir Putin and Russia will not cower behind the broom and submissively take his medicine. Putin, who for years has been overseeing a fast paced militarization of Russia, is already planning how to stand up to the United States and NATO for disseminating lies against him and Russia.

At a meeting with the Russian Security Council on Monday, July 22, Putin made the following statements:

“We shall provide an adequate and well-measured response to NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders, and we shall take note of [the West] setting up a global missile defense architecture and building up its arsenals of precision-guided weapons.”

“No matter what our Western counterparts tell us, we can see what’s going on. As it stands, NATO is blatantly building up its forces in Eastern Europe, including the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea areas. Its operational and combat training activities are gaining in scale.”

“With that in mind, we need to promptly and diligently implement all the measures we have planned to strengthen our nation’s defense capabilities, including our plans for Crimea and Sevastopol, where we will practically have to set up our military architecture from scratch.”

“The very concept of the state sovereignty is becoming diluted. Unwanted regimes and countries that are trying to exercise independent policy or simply stand in the way of someone’s interests are getting destabilized.”

“Attempts aimed at destabilizing the social and political situation, throwing off Russia and striking at its vulnerable and soft spots have been and will be made.”

“The so-called competitive struggle at the international arena will imply the use of tools in both economic and political fields. This will include the potential of security services, modern information and communication technologies, and connections of dependent, puppet NGOs – the so-called soft power. Apparently, some countries regard it as democracy.”

“On our part, we follow all the norms of international law and fulfill our obligations to our partners. We expect other countries and organizations, military and political alliances – Russia is not a part of any alliance, and that underpins our sovereignty – to take our national interests into consideration.”

According to Reuters and Russian news media, Putin, reading from notes at the head of a long table with officials seated on each side, spoke much more forcefully than during brief televised remarks on the plane's downing first released in the early hours of Monday, when he had seemed less assured than usual.
Putin reiterated his belief that protests that toppled Ukraine's former Russian-backed leader were instigated and funded from abroad. Despite Western sanctions, he said Moscow would stand by separatists in eastern Ukraine whom, he denounced as part of a popular rising against an illegal coup.
“Russia is being presented with what is almost an ultimatum: “Let us destroy this part of the population that is ethnically and historically close to Russia and we will not impose sanctions against you.’ This is a strange and unacceptable logic.”
The sound that we will be hearing for many years is the sound of Russian factories from Vladivostok to Petersburg churning out new weapons. Hopefully, the White House has formally renounced its dangerous reset policy in relations with Russia and will not show that it is unequal to the task of being the leader and defender of the free world.