Gorbachev Warns Tensions Over Ukraine Could Spiral Into Nuclear War

[Purveyor]

BERLIN — Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned that tensions between Russia and European powers over the Ukraine crisis could result in a major conflict or even nuclear war, in an interview to appear in a German news magazine on Saturday.

"A war of this kind would unavoidably lead to a nuclear war," the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner told Der Spiegel news magazine, according to excerpts released on Friday.

"We won't survive the coming years if someone loses their nerve in this overheated situation," added Gorbachev, 83. "This is not something I'm saying thoughtlessly. I am extremely concerned."

--clip
Gorbachev, who is widely admired in Germany for his role in opening the Berlin Wall and steps that led to Germany's reunification in 1990, warned against Western intervention in the Ukraine crisis.

"The new Germany wants to intervene everywhere," he said in the interview. "In Germany evidently there are a lot of people who want to help create a new division in Europe."

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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/gorbachev-warns-tensions-over-ukraine-could-spiral-into-nuclear-war/514179.html

[Duckhunter935]

1. easiest way to prevent it

is for Russia to stop it's aggression, invasion and annexation of it's sovereign neighbors.

[edhopper]

2. K&R

it's in Putin's court.

[Duckhunter935]

3. been for a while

keeps having his never ending "military exercises" on the Ukrainian border and sending his troops, tanks and artillery into Ukraine on "vacation"

I am sure the Putin apologists will be here any minute to explain why he needs to do this.

[edhopper]

4. I have in min the cry of a child

when parents are punishing two of them for fighting.

"He started it!"

[Purveyor]

5. That is exactly what discussion of this topic usually evolves into and

why it is generally useless.

[edhopper]

7. No,

in this case it is true, he did start it, and should be treated in kind.

[Duckhunter935]

10. Correct

Russia is the only one guilty of invasion and annexation. They have also been supporting the conflict with men and with equipment.

Could have been stopped months ago if Russia would stop the endless exercises on the Ukrainian border and actually enforced the internationally recognized border with Ukraine. Putin can do that in a minute.

To bad some here just can not see those facts. Putin can back this down today.

[Vattel]

6. This is fucking serious people.

It's almost like people want a return to the cold war and the threat of nuclear annihilation. The USA and Western Europe need to find a way to be friends with Russia. I don't give a fuck if Putin is an asshole. Russia is the only nation that has the ability to destroy Western Europe and the USA.

[edhopper]

8. Does that included

giving him Ukraine?

It takes two to make friends.

The rift was caused by one of the players, not both sides.

[GGJohn]

9. We need to find a way to be friends with Russia?

Why not the other way around?

[Duckhunter935]

12. good question

I await the answer

[Duckhunter935]

11. We were on that path

And I agreed to it, Putin invaded another country and damn sure should not be rewarded for that behavior.

[Igel]

13. Gorbachov got the message.

He waffled last spring.

Then the proposal of bringing serious criminal charges against him for the break-up of the USSR was floated. It was suggested he be tried for treason. It wasn't a good thing that he was around to keep it from degenerating into war: It was something he either failed to try to stop or something he facilitated. This went from a quip in a newspaper to something politicians in the Duma said to something that was echoed or vaguely alluded to in a Putin speech. Unless you knew what had been said, what Putin was was just boilerplate that hadn't been much bandied about for a long time. It wasn't Putin v Eltsyn and economics; it was Putin v Gorbachev and Russian might and strength. In this, Gorbachev had no leverage, no voice.

It was a few weeks before Gorbachev surfaced again, but his message was less Belgian waffle and more unadulterated Soviet vodka with a bite of black radish or dried sprat. Russia good, Russia should be strong, Russia right in its actions in Crimea and Donbas. West wrong, NATO wrong, EU wrong.

Not unamazingly, domestic talk of him as defendant in a treason trial vanished. Instead, RT and others started quoting him extensively, taking advantage of the positive rep he had in the West--esp. among Europeans who remember all the "European house" and "our common house" rhetoric that was going on in the late '80s, at least in German and Russian.