By Haider Abbas
The Russian-Ukraine war in going-on unabated. It has entered into its five-month, and quite understandably, Russia, the erstwhile Soviet-Union and a superpower wants an escape-route of it. Russia started its war against Ukraine as it considered Ukraine to be flirting with NATO, and hence, Russia, could never see a possibility of European led NATO, right on its doorstep. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, it has come to light, has made his ally to warn England that London ‘will be bombed first’ if the world war 3 breaks out. The Independent 1 on June 26, reported ‘London will be the first strategic Nato target to be hit by Russian missiles should a third world war erupt, a close ally of president Putin has claimed. Speaking on Russian state TV, Andrey Gurulyov, an MP who sits on Moscow’s defence committee, described how a possible full-scale invasion of NATO’s Baltic state members would work.
The Russians have now made it all clear, as one of the gravest warning, through ‘Gurulyov, a former military commander and member of the pro-Putin United Russia party, who said: “We’ll destroy the entire group of the enemy’s space satellites during the first air operation. “No one will care if they are American or British; we would see them all as NATO. “Second, we’ll mitigate the entire system of anti-missile defence, everywhere and 100 per cent. Third, we certainly won’t start from Warsaw, Paris or Berlin. The first to be hit will be London. ’
The signal from Moscow is now getting ‘hard’ that it won’t consider USA or UK to be in the forefront and will need not hit Germany, France or Poland, but instead, London, for London is what assumes to the prime most nation in the whole comity of countries inside Europe. England and NATO along with US have thrown their weight behind Ukraine with massive military aid along with sanctions etc. Russia has warned that the entire electricity would be cut from Europe to plunge the whole region into darkness. This by any standard is an outrageous statement and never in decades such an announcement had been heard that the third-world-war might just be on the anvil, and that London would be the first of its target!
The next scenario, which can easily be imagined, that if a bomb falls on London, how vulnerable it would be for the whole world, as London is one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the world, where people from all across the world stay, own properties and apartments etc. How London would be subjected to this chaos and how the world would situate to the havoc-in-waiting is now the world may be forced to imagine. How will NATO retaliate and what ramifications it is to have over Russia, considering the size-and-weight of Russia, will also have to be weighed, particularly more so, when China, another superpower and heavy-weight, has shown open support to Russia.
What also would need to be monitored is that Russian, their great numbers, are thronging inside United Arab Emirates and have been buying prime properties inside UAE from quite some time, almost on a silent level, and have primarily made Dubai a ‘Russian hub’ for themselves, and have forged superb bilateral relations with the Arab states, which will work as a magnet for Russian diplomacy in the Middle East. The Arab states are also right now in merriment, selling oil, at the highest rates, something which had plummeted to minus-37 USD recently! But, nevertheless, if this war in to go further ahead, ‘food and grain’ crisis along with climate change are the issues which are starkly to look into the world’s face.
This war is all soon to happen as the touted New World Order, the brain child of US and Europe, towards new forms of economy is what is the next plan and Russia and China are the duo to challenge it. Therefore, a war between the world giants is what the world is to be forced to ill afford. Whatever be the cost. India, however, has played well to the corridors of diplomacy, as a single-step of US, an Indian ally, to dislodge PM of Pakistan Imran Khan government, has eased the much desired tensions which India was having vis a vis Pakistan and also China-in its Himalayan regions, particularly since August 2019, when India’s PM finished the Special Status given to JK&L under Article 370 of India’s Constitution.
This war has all the potentials to reach to Middle East, engulf Israel, involve India-China-US-Taiwan-Pakistan, and the whole-build-up is what seems to be getting more and more precarious by every passing-day. This is what is forcing nations to start to their ‘defence-mechanisms’ as has come the view from Jordon, reported by Bloomberg 2 on June 24, ‘Jordan’s King Abdullah II said he would support the formation of a Middle East military alliance similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ahead of a visit of US President Joe Biden to the region’ and this statement assumes more significance that ‘regional diplomacy has intensified in recent months. This week the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ( had ) concluded a Middle East tour of Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, mending ties with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after years of rancor.’
The world perhaps is now getting closer and closer towards the ultimate destruction, but for India, it has groomed home, the prospects of no immediate conflict with China as it participated in the June 24 BRICS summit, and in which, Pakistan, its worst bête noir, had been slammed with a door. Will the world soon plunge into an era when there would be no internet or for that matter not even electricity? When mobile phones would be rendered as paper-weights! Is the Armageddon round the corner? If Russia targets the satellites, as it has declared, such grim ‘circumstances-that-may-be’, are now breathing down everyone’s shoulder? What is to happen is only time can tell.
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The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and writes on international issues.
References:
1-https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-ally-london-bomb-world-war-3-b2108980.html
2- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-24/jordan-s-king-backs-middle-east-nato-with-a-defined-mission
