Senator Black Briefs Iran’s PressTV That U.S. Could Be Provoking Nuclear War against Russia

Dec. 6, 2021 (EIRNS)—“It is not clear that Western officials understand the gravity of what they are doing. It is unlikely that Russia can accept stationing of nuclear weapons or even large-scale movements of NATO troops into Ukraine,” former Virginia State Senator Richard H. Black told Iran’s PressTV on Dec. 5. “Ukraine is not a part of NATO, but the alliance increasingly talks of war to help Ukraine recover areas that have seceded from it. If NATO were to make war against Russia, the chances of escalation into an all-out nuclear conflict would be high.”

PressTV cited Black’s warning on Dec. 5 as the lead of its coverage of the Ukraine crisis, two days before a videoconference between U.S. and Russian Presidents Biden and Putin.

Black assessed that the Biden Administration is blundering by promising arms and aid to Ukraine’s projected attempt to take back seceded areas by force, namely the Russian-speaking regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and Crimea—Crimea voted in 2014 to formally rejoined Russia, after the neo-Nazi coup in Kiev.

Black continued, referring to the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk: “The Ukrainian army is moving aggressively against this small pocket of Russian-speaking people. Ukraine has deployed heavy mortars and artillery to shell the enclave, and has carried out 200 unprovoked attacks in recent weeks,” he said.

“Ukraine claims that Russia has deployed 94,000 troops near the border. However, not a single Russian soldier is outside of his own country. Meanwhile, Ukraine has unlawfully amassed 125,000 troops within the deconfliction zone established by the Minsk agreements which were intended to defuse tensions there.”

Black further explained that, “Unlike Russia and China, American foreign policy is driven by an amorphous array of bureaucrats, think tanks, multinational organizations, billionaire oligarchs, and powerful lobbyists. They tug and pull Western foreign policy in an increasingly reckless and militant direction.”

Senator Black was also in the U.S. Marines, flying helicopters in combat in Vietnam; and retired his military career with the rank of Colonel, having served as chief of the Army Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General at the Pentagon, before embarking on his political career.