Heading towards World War III?

Western “half-wits” from “stupid think tanks” are leading their countries down the road of nuclear armageddon with their hybrid war against Moscow, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. Endlessly funneling weapons and support to Ukraine while pretending not to be directly involved in the conflict will not work, added the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council.

The “security guarantees” proposal unveiled by Kiev on Tuesday was “really a prologue to the Third World War,” said Medvedev, calling it a “hysterical appeal” to Western countries engaged in a proxy war against Russia.

If the West continues its “unrestrained pumping of the Kiev regime with the most dangerous types of weapons,” Russia’s military campaign will move to the next level, where “visible boundaries and potential predictability of actions by the parties to the conflict” will be erased and the conflict will take on a life of its own, as wars always do, Medvedev argued.

“And then the Western nations will not be able to sit in their clean homes, laughing at how they carefully weaken Russia by proxy. Everything will be on fire around them. Their people will harvest their grief in full. The land will be on fire and the concrete will melt,” Medvedev wrote, before citing a Bible verse from Revelations 9:18.

“Yet still the narrow-minded politicians and their stupid think tanks, thoughtfully twirling a glass of wine in their hands, talk about how they can deal with us without entering into a direct war. Dull idiots with a classical education,” Medvedev wrote.

His comments were prompted by Kiev’s publication of a “security treaty” proposal, developed under the tutelage of former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The draft envisions the US and its allies guaranteeing Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders with weapons, ammunition, financial assistance and training, as well as committing to maintain sanctions against Russia for as long as Kiev wants, and handing over any confiscated Russian property to Ukraine.

www.rt.com/russia/562734-medvedev-apocalypse-revelation-ukraine

Ukraine’s attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant are creating an unacceptable risk, the chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Tuesday. Moscow will act to prevent a disaster from happening, while the US does not seem to care about the potential damage to Ukraine and its European NATO allies, the speaker of the Russian parliament has said.

“Kiev’s terrorist actions are putting the world on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. We cannot allow this to happen,” Volodin said, opening the legislature’s autumn session.

While the US may be far away from the plant, “their NATO allies in Europe stand to suffer” in case of a radioactive release, Volodin noted, adding that the US government and EU parliaments are silent about the threat, but many other states around the world share Russia’s concern about the situation.

Russia has controlled Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since March. Attacks on the facility started in July, with the Russian Defense Ministry documenting more than 30 artillery and drone strikes, as well as two attempts by Ukrainian commandos to storm the plant, one during the visit of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission earlier this month. Kiev has accused Moscow of staging the shelling to make Ukraine look bad, even though its military eventually admitted to targeting the area.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who personally led the mission to inspect the plant, said on Monday that both Russia and Ukraine are “interested” in a proposal for a local ceasefire and a security zone around the ZNPP. All of its six reactors are currently offline, due to the ongoing artillery threat.

Moscow has rejected any notion of withdrawing its troops from the area, however, with the Kremlin saying that the only discussion at this time is “about forcing the Ukrainian side to stop the barbaric shelling” of the premises.

www.rt.com/russia/562741-zaporozhye-nuclear-catastrophe-volodin

Ukraine’s attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant are creating an unacceptable risk, the chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Tuesday. Moscow will act to prevent a disaster from happening, while the US does not seem to care about the potential damage to Ukraine and its European NATO allies, the speaker of the Russian parliament has said.

“Kiev’s terrorist actions are putting the world on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. We cannot allow this to happen,” Volodin said, opening the legislature’s autumn session.

While the US may be far away from the plant, “their NATO allies in Europe stand to suffer” in case of a radioactive release, Volodin noted, adding that the US government and EU parliaments are silent about the threat, but many other states around the world share Russia’s concern about the situation.

Russia has controlled Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since March. Attacks on the facility started in July, with the Russian Defense Ministry documenting more than 30 artillery and drone strikes, as well as two attempts by Ukrainian commandos to storm the plant, one during the visit of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission earlier this month. Kiev has accused Moscow of staging the shelling to make Ukraine look bad, even though its military eventually admitted to targeting the area.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who personally led the mission to inspect the plant, said on Monday that both Russia and Ukraine are “interested” in a proposal for a local ceasefire and a security zone around the ZNPP. All of its six reactors are currently offline, due to the ongoing artillery threat.

Moscow has rejected any notion of withdrawing its troops from the area, however, with the Kremlin saying that the only discussion at this time is “about forcing the Ukrainian side to stop the barbaric shelling” of the premises.

www.rt.com/russia/562741-zaporozhye-nuclear-catastrophe-volodin

Russian missiles have hit a reservoir dam near the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, officials say.

Residents in some areas were told to evacuate, city head Oleksandr Vilkul said, but he added the situation was under control.

Ukraine said the strike was revenge by Russia for its recent counter-attack.

President Volodymyr Zelensky - who was born in the city - described Russia as a "terrorist state" after the attack on the Karachunivske reservoir.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62910245

Moscow will be forced to double down on its military offensive in Ukraine after Kiev released a proposal on how the US and its allies could guarantee its security, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned.

The document highlights the threat that NATO poses to Russia, he argued.

The Russian official noted on Wednesday that the proposed series of treaties between Ukraine and the US and its allies is specifically meant as a stopgap solution before Ukraine formally joins NATO. Moscow considers Ukraine’s accession to the US-led military bloc unacceptable due to the perceived threat to its national security such a step would entail.

“One of the main threats to our nation remains, which means that one of the main reasons for the special military operation remains, or even becomes more urgent,” Peskov told journalists.

He added that the best path that Ukraine has to ensure its national security under the circumstances was to address Russia’s concern over its cooperation with NATO.

“The leadership of the country must take steps to eliminate the threat posed to Russia. They know well what those steps should be,” Peskov said.

The proposed ‘Kiev Security Compact’ was released on Tuesday by the office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The document was prepared by his chief-of-staff Andrey Yermak and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Kiev wants the US and other members of NATO to offer legally binding guarantees of its security and pledge long-term economic assistance. The document explicitly rejects Russia’s demand of a neutral status for Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated earlier on Wednesday that the proposal was meant to trick European nations into a costly sponsorship of Kiev. They will risk their own economic viability, thus undermining their own political power, which secretly is the goal of Kiev’s puppeteers in Washington, she claimed.

www.rt.com/russia/562776-peskov-ukraine-security-pact

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres by phone on Wednesday, the Kremlin said in a statement. Global food security, the grain deal and conflict in Ukraine were the main points of focus of the conversation.

Guterres told Putin about the measures the UN is taking to lift any restrictions on exports of Russian agriculture goods and fertilizers. Moscow and the UN agreed to further “closely cooperate” to ensure international food security, the statement said.

Also discussed was the situation around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the largest of its kind in Europe, which is located in Ukraine but has been controlled by Russia since March.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev’s forces of shelling the grounds of the plant, warning that such actions could lead to a Chernobyl-scale nuclear catastrophe. Kiev has denied the accusations and instead blamed Russia for the incidents at the facility, despite the area already being under Moscow’s control.

On Wednesday, Putin welcomed the efforts of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, aimed at contributing to the plant’s security and told Guterres about the measures Russia had been taking to ensure its safety. The IAEA sent a mission to the plant on September 1.

The two also discussed a UN fact-finding mission that is expected to investigate the July strike on a detention center housing Ukrainian POWs near the settlement of Yelenovka in the Donetsk People's Republic.

Moscow blamed Kiev for the attack that left 50 prisoners dead and another 73 injured. Kiev denied the accusations, claiming that Russian troops had launched the strike to frame Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry invited experts from the UN and International Red Cross Committee to carry out an impartial investigation. On Wednesday, Guterres told Putin that the UN is still conducting “active preparation” for the mission, according to the Kremlin.

www.rt.com/russia/562812-putin-guterres-phone-call