The EU-Ukraine summit comes on the heels of Berlin and Washington's announcements to send their main battle tanks to Kiev, as well as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledging to continue arming Ukraine until Russia is defeated. Will the EU-Ukraine summit raise the stakes even further?
"Yes, that's to be expected. The Kiev regime is constantly brazenly demanding new weapon systems," Dr. Christian Blex, an AfD lawmaker, state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, told Sputnik. "Unfortunately, in the past, the transatlantic elites in the EU were only too willing to give in to these demands. They are therefore certainly willing to prolong the bloodshed by supplying more weapons."
Remarkably, Scholz had long been reluctant to deliver German-made Leopard 2s to Kiev, but finally succumbed to the pressure from his NATO allies allegedly after the Biden administration promised to send Abrams M1 to the Eastern European conflict zone too.
To complicate matters further, the forthcoming deployment of German main battle tanks to the former Ukrainian territories which voluntarily joined Russia evokes strong memories of Nazi Germany's 1941 invasion of the USSR. During a speech at a February 2 concert commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Russia is once again threatened with German tanks. "Unbelievable, but it is a fact: we are once again being threatened with German tanks – Leopards – that have crosses [painted] on their sides," he stated.
While the summit was meant to be dedicated to the issue of peace, it is actually a summit where the EU is pursuing the US agenda to prolong war, according to Tiberio Graziani, chairman at Vision & Global Trends. If Brussels really wants to push ahead with the peaceful solution of the conflict it should adopt a neutral position in the first place, argued the scholar.
"The shipments of arms, as well as, at this particular moment, the potential accession of Ukraine to the union show that Brussels is not willing to play a proactive role in finding a solution that can satisfy the two contenders, Kiev and Moscow," he told Sputnik.
Sending Combat Aircraft to Kiev Means Further Escalation
Meanwhile, Kiev is urging the West to provide it with fighter jets and other combat aircraft, something that the US has refused to do - so far.
Blex believes that "that would be a new level of escalation on the way to gradually driving the states of the EU into war against the Russian Federation against the will of the citizens."
"In my opinion, it’s unlikely that the Biden administration authorizes the supply of old McDonnell Douglas F-15s, the same ones used by Turkey, the cost of which varies from $31 to $43 million each," Dr. Marco Marsili, researcher at Cà Foscari University of Venice, associate fellow at the Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis and former public official and election observer for the OSCE/ODIHR, told Sputnik. "For the same reason, I do not believe that the EU will pass the supply of Eurofighter Typhoons, which cost about €63 million; the loss of an aircraft of this price would be difficult to justify in front of the taxpayers. I think the supply of intermediate-range ballistic missiles is more likely."
Earlier, Florian Philippot, the leader of the French Patriots Party and former MEP, warned that supplying combat aircraft to Kiev would be "the shortest way to the third World War." The comment came as French President Emmanuel Macron remarked on Monday that France didn't rule out sending jets to Ukraine.
It should also be borne in mind that planes are unlikely to be flown by Ukrainian soldiers. Training on the new types of aircraft would take far too long. It is to be expected that with these planes also EU crews would be 'delivered'.
Even though many European countries are hesitating to pledge fighter jets to Kiev, their "no" is a temporary one, according to Guy Mettan, a Swiss politician and journalist and former executive director of the Geneva Press Club and author of the book "Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria."
"That’s just a question of time, in order to reassure and prepare western public opinions to new escalations of the war," Mettan told Sputnik. "As soon as the public opinions have been heated enough, new shipments of offensive and more lethal weapons will be delivered (…)The goal of NATO, i.e., EU and US, is to support Ukraine at any expense, until the surrender of Russia, whatever the consequences could be. The hidden ultimate goal is to provoke Russia to commit a false move, such as a nuclear strike, in order to win the information war and to cut Russia from its allies on the international scene."
Europeans Want to Live in Peace
There is no doubt that the probable escalation does not correspond to the interest of European citizens, let alone any EU indirect participation in the Ukraine conflict, according to Sputnik's interlocutors.
"The transatlantic elites within the EU are completely unwilling to represent the interests of their citizens," said Blex. "They dutifully and obediently obey the interests of their Big Brother. The announced delivery of main battle tanks shows very clearly that the German government, especially Ms. Baerbock, has sunk to the level of vassals of the US."
EU member states are continuing to step up their military commitments despite protests and strikes over rising energy crisis and economic slump largely caused by a blowback from unprecedented anti-Russia sanctions.
"Europeans have lost all their historical background," explained Mettan. "Their new generation of leaders – except German Chancelier Scholz and Hungarian Viktor Orban – didn’t know about the Second World War and even the Cold War. They are all in their 40s, from Italy to Finland, from France to Latvia, from UK to Canada and Denmark and they all think a war can be won without cost for them. They also count on the propaganda to convince their citizens that the economic downs, inflation, energy costs, and industrial collapse could be only attributed to Russia."
However, there has been no substantial anti-war movement in Europe so far capable of forcing EU leaders to halt Kiev's further militarization, the observers pointed out. According to Mettan, after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis with two years of lockdowns, people have lost their capacity to protest.
"The strategic thinking prevailing during the Cold War as well as the capacity to analyze international relations in terms of propaganda and power games has disappeared. It will take a long time before these capacities are restored," he suggested.
In addition, the western mainstream media remains a big problem, especially in Germany, according to Blex. He lamented the fact that the press has degenerated into mere government propaganda instead of being critical and the watchdogs of Berlin's actions. To make matters worse, alternative and Russian media have been either silenced or subjected to outright bans, according to him.
"Without critical media, many ordinary people find it difficult to understand the actual context. The increasing obstruction of critical media by the EU clearly shows how seriously the EU elites take the situation," warned the AfD lawmaker.
"It is a manipulation of European citizens by spreading a narrative supported by political leaders and the mainstream media," echoed Marsili. "Social media censorship, the ban on Russian media, such as Sputnik, deprives the European audience of plural information. In addition, discordant voices, i.e. criticisms of the official narrative, are excluded from the televised debate. It’s a propaganda campaign that works on people's subconscious; a strategy that is termed with the portmanteau 'cognitive warfare'."
The "war drums" project spearheaded by the EU elites has become a convenient distraction from emerging economic problems in the EU, according to Blex. They are using the Ukraine conflict to hide the ideologically-caused economic problems from the population, he noted, referring to their constant mantra: "It's not up to us, the Russians are to blame!" Still, above all, ordinary Europeans want to live in peace, concluded the German lawmaker.