WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Friday, Poroshenko announced on his website he was appointing former NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen as his personal adviser.
"That the US puppet Poroshenko should appoint the ex-NATO chief of staff as his advisor says it all," Caldicott, founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the co-winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, said.
Caldicott said the move was a direct and logistical consequence of the US and EU-backed coup that toppled the democratically-elected government of Ukraine under President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
"The US coup in Ukraine is achieving its end: To include the country in NATO, a US run organization," Caldicott stated.
She cautioned that the appointment of Rasmussen as adviser would serve to further inflame Moscow’s concerns that the United States and NATO were using Poroshenko’s increasingly unpopular government in Kiev as a forward platform hostile to the security of Russia.
Rasmussen’s appointment "will serve to further antagonize an already antagonized [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," she warned.
Caldicott, one of the world’s leading experts on the global nuclear arms race, also noted that Rasmussen’s appointment came at a time when both Russia and the US-led NATO alliance were carrying out military exercises.
She predicted that Rasmussen’s appointment and likely hawkish advice to Poroshenko would dangerously intensify tensions in the region.
"Will this lead to conflict when both the United States and Russia are busy practicing war exercises against each other?" Caldicott asked. "Only time will tell."
Caldicott is the author of many other books, including "The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military Industrial Complex." The Smithsonian Institution has named Caldicott one of the most influential women of the 20th century.
