PRESS RELEASE

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Gorbachev: The Cold War Could Turn Hot

April 15, 2017 (EIRNS)—Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, warned in an interview with the German tabloid Bild Zeitung, that a Cold War is ongoing and it could turn hot.

"The language of politicians and the top-level military personnel is becoming increasingly militant. Military doctrines are formulated increasingly harshly,"

he said.

"The mass media pick up on all of this and add fuel to the fire. The relationship between the big powers continues to worsen. This creates the impression that the world is preparing for a war. So all the indications of a Cold War are there."

When asked if this Cold War could turn hot, he said: "Well, anything is possible if we just keep watching, sit back and do nothing."

Prior to this, Gorbachev had charged repeatedly that the West did not treat Russia as an equal after the end of the Cold War. Many people in the West, he said,

"were secretly rubbing their hands and felt something like a flush of victory—including those who had promised us: ‘We will not move one centimeter farther East.’"

He reminded his interviewer that, in the 1980s, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. "took unprecedented steps together," referring to the nuclear agreements that resulted in a reduction of the nuclear potentials of both nations by 80%.

"However, the West then used Russia’s weakness after the dissolution of the Soviet Union to declare itself the ‘winner’ of the Cold War,"

he said. "The principle of equality in international relations was forgotten, and thus we all ended up where we are today."