“Medical Diagnosis.” Russian Foreign Ministry Blasts TV Report Playing Up War Fears as “Final Stage of Hysteria”

Some good news from Russia. The Foreign Ministry doesn’t think there’s going to be a war.

Days ago a deputy spokesman for the ministry said the idea of a war between the two peoples of Russia and Ukraine was “unacceptable”:

“Our country is not going to attack anyone. We consider unacceptable even the idea of ​​a war between our peoples,” 

“However, the overseas curators of Ukraine think differently. It seems that they intend to firmly adhere to the scenario they invented, according to which Russia should attack Ukraine, turning on the entire Western world against itself… When something does not go according to plan, they begin to artificially escalate the situation.”

(Would it really be a war between peoples though?)

This was followed by the Foreign Ministry website commenting on a Swiss TV report that played up fears of war.

Some excerpts:

The frenzy in the Western media around Russian-Ukrainian relations has reached boiling point, or rather the final stage of hysteria. They are churning out ever more absurd materials, but the Swiss TV broadcaster SRF took the cake by releasing a video report called Russia Pulls up Troops to Ukrainian Border.

As he makes such loud claims to scare the Western public, the journalist is in fact referring to the Russian-Belarusian defensive exercise Union Resolve 2022 with the participation of some units from the Eastern Military District.

DEFENSIVE. EXERCISE.

On the territory of the UNION STATE.

They heard the song but got it wrong. However, they managed to cook up yet another bogeyman story for an ignorant audience that has been fed such fakes for years.  

Our dear Swiss friends, this is beyond unprofessional. It is a medical diagnosis. If you want to make a report about the exercise, please inquire at the Russian Defence Ministry (you have already learned to borrow footage and use it out of context). They will teach you to use a map and give you the facts. They will tell you what testing DEFENSIVE potential is about.

But SRF’s Russia correspondent David Nauer continues to heighten tension: “We just don’t know what the Kremlin wants. We don’t know if the war will break out.” We would like to advise Mr Nauer to get out of his shell, discover the internet and go to the kremlin.ru site. The President of Russia has repeatedly, patiently and in great detail (just for such journalists) spoken about our principled position.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also gives regular in-depth accounts of the Russian foreign policy approaches. By the way, his comments and interviews are translated into German. Just yesterday Sergey Lavrov said, clear as day, in an interview to four radio stations, “If it depends on the Russian Federation, there will be no war. We do not want wars.” So it is high time questions about whether there will be war are redirected to Washington, Brussels and Kiev.

For those under a rock. 

Hopefully, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) knows what it’s talking about. Of course, the only reason the Americans are even talking to Russians is that they believe the invasion is a distinct possibility so isn’t the MFA undermining the hard work of the Ministry of Defense in conjuring up the invasion buildup bluff? But perhaps it is judged that now that Western Russian Ukraine invasion fears have acquired a life of their own, the MFA can safely quash the war talk for the domestic audience and give the Russian stock market a much-needed respite from war fear losses.

PS.: Statements like this from the Foreign Ministry are a good and welcome signal. But I would not read them at face value. It is not usual for the Russian to carry out exercises in Belarus with troops from the Pacific. And it is not usual for the Russians to exercise in Belarus on a large scale so quickly again after September’s Zapad. Maybe Russia has no intention of launching anything, but to say that it has not been simulating preparations for a launch is untrue.