Russia should “instill horror and the fear of God” into the West to scare the US and European allies, Kremlin political scientist Sergey Karaganov has said. The non-profit organisation Russian Media Monitor has shared a video clip from the Russian TV show The Right To Know, featuring Mr Karaganov, the head of the Moscow-based think tank Council for Foreign and Defense Policy.
Reacting to the called off meeting in Budapest between the US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, , and following the newly imposed US sanctions on Russian oil companies, he claimed that the US can no longer be trusted.
Mr Karaganow, former Kremlin advisor part of Putin’s close inner circle, said: “Now we have a clear understanding that we can’t make any deals with any Trumps in a way that would suit Russia. Therefore we should act in accordance with our own scenario, with or without Trump, and that’s it.
“Now, it’s completely clear that we should move on to completely different tactics and strategy that consist of instilling horror and the fear of God in the European Allies of the United States and pointing out to the American elites that if they go down with the path of supporting a war against Russia, and they are fully supporting a war against Russia, we should simply explain to the Americans that our patience ran out or will soon run out, and in the future, we will be acting decisively, first, against their allies, then against their bases and their other assets.”
The ally of Putin went on to claim that if the situation continues, “we should preemptively punish our European neighbours, with non-nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that if anyone retaliates, “then we will use nuclear weapons”. He said this would be a difficult but the “only possible” response to “avoid a world war that is rolling in from Europe”.
Mr Karaganov is well known for pushing the Russian authorities to adopt a hard line. In a March interview with the BBC, opposing peace talks, he said that the best possible outcome of the war is “Ukraine’s total capitulation”.
