Russia interested in provoking conflict with NATO in Belarus – military expert Musienko

Military expert Oleksandr Musienko said this on Espreso TV. 

“The Russians are already provoking NATO. All incidents happen for a reason. The missile that flew 300 kilometers from the border with Belarus in Poland, the incident with the Polish plane over the Black Sea, where there was a provocation, cannot be attributed to chance. Neither is the information from the Scandinavian states that Russia is preparing a series of terrorist attacks and provocations against infrastructure and submarine cables in the Baltic Sea. To this we can add a large-scale provocation - the potential deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus,” he said.

Musienko added that NATO's response is being checked.

“I think Russia is somehow interested in provoking some kind of conflict with NATO on the territory of Belarus. So that under the pretext of preventing a major world war, world leaders would sit down at the negotiating table with Putin and start listening to his conditions, ultimatums, and so on. They see escalation as a step toward de-escalation, which is a paradoxical, twisted, incomprehensible logic for many. I'm quite inclined to believe that they may be striving for this,” the expert said.

He added that he does not see the Kremlin leadership's intention to end the war, but rather to continue it.

“To continue against Ukraine - they have used all possible trump cards to escalate, except for nuclear weapons. The attempt to undermine the situation is obvious, it will play a cruel joke on them - it is naive to think that they will be able to control the process and everything will go according to their scenario. A lot of their scenarios have been broken during this time, and it will be the same in this case,” Musienko emphasized.

The expert assessed NATO's response to Russia's provocations.

“NATO is still reacting inappropriately, but the alliance has taken a powerful and fast track - it is making a number of decisions, so far at the level of doctrinal documents and troop movements. I think that NATO is well aware of the possibility of clashes and incidents with Russia. We need to prepare for a slightly different reaction, apart from expressing concerns,” the expert summarized.