Reznikov: “We are already a de facto member of NATO”

Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian defense minister, said in an interview with Yahoo News, “We are already a de facto member of NATO,” Reznikov says, a line he has used in other interviews of late. “And I have no doubt we will eventually become a de jure one. From our side, we continue a job, for joint fulfillment of which NATO was founded. There is already a high degree of interoperability between our military and NATO systems.”

He said the West is coming around and points to comments by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg from a year ago to now. He’s evolved. Ukraine’s “right place is in NATO,” Stoltenberg said on April 20, on his first trip to wartime Kyiv, adding that all the allies agree that Ukraine’s membership is only a question of time.

If that’s how Biden looks at it, we will have to invoke Article 5 and go to war with Russia.

They asked Reznikov about the HARM missile turning up in Belgorod, Russia, where U.S. weapons systems are famously not supposed to be deployed, as per the conditions of security assistance.

Reznikov flatly denies using any U.S.-provided munitions inside Russian territory.

“Not only did I agree to this verbally with the Americans, but also in a written form,” he says. “We have not violated this provision.”

Then who did? Who hit the Kremlin?

Crimea, Now Russia, Is a Target

“A number of Ukrainian officials have hinted to Yahoo News that Crimea will be a target in the forthcoming counteroffensive — if not a full-on ground invasion by infantry and armor, then subject to a massive campaign of artillery and missile strikes to neutralize Russia’s ability to use the peninsula to replenish its garrisons elsewhere along the frontline. The prevailing assumption in Kyiv is that recapturing Crimea, which has suffered almost no damage to critical civilian infrastructure since its seizure in 2014, is, in fact, easier and more feasible than recapturing occupied Donbas, “a black hole,” in the words of one Ukrainian military official. That same official suggested that putting Ukrainian forces that much closer to the Russian border makes no strategic sense at present, given Putin’s mobilization program and the regular influx of raw conscripts into the battle space. Crimea, by contrast, is more reachable from Ukrainian positions and more isolated from Russian ones, as Moscow is well aware,” Yahoo authors write.

This would be a direct attack on Russia.

Reznikov also noted that the West says they won’t send certain weapons and planes but then gives in. He expects that to continue.

As for Bakhmut, about 80% in Russia’s hands, he says it gave them a chance to buy time for their big counter-offensive.

The other day, someone said we shouldn’t put it past the Biden [Obama] regime to start a World War to keep power.

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