Roving Periscope: Russia warns of WW-III if NATO admits Ukraine as a member

Virendra Pandit 

New Delhi: A day after the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) condemned Moscow’s annexation of four Ukrainian areas, Russia warned of a Third World War if the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) admitted Ukraine as a member of the 30-nation Western security umbrella.

A total of 143 members voted in favor of the UNGA resolution while five voted against it. India, and 34 other countries, abstained from voting.

The resolution came days after Russia vetoed a similar proposal in the UN Security Council (UNSC), in which India had abstained.

The latest resolution, adopted by the UNGA members, where no one wields a veto, condemned Russia’s “attempted illegal annexations” of the four Ukrainian regions following “so-called referendums”. This vote came two days after Ukraine and Russia clashed in the UNGA.

On Monday, India voted to reject Russia’s call to hold a secret ballot at UNGA on a draft resolution to condemn Moscow’s “attempted illegal annexation” of Ukrainian territories.

President Vladimir Putin had, on September 30, formally annexed four Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—comprising 18 percent of the territory of the war-torn country.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Russian actions and said he was deeply shocked as Moscow’s annexation represented “another unacceptable escalation” of the war.

After Russia escalated missile attacks on Ukraine in the wake of the blast on a key Crimean bridge and Kyiv urged NATO to fast-track its entry into the security umbrella, Moscow warned of a Third World War if the West went ahead with it.

If they admitted Kyiv into the US-led NATO military alliance, the conflict in Ukraine would be “guaranteed” to escalate into the Third World War, a Russian Security Council official warned.

Full membership in NATO requires the consent of all its 30 member-nations

“Kyiv knows well that such a step would mean a guaranteed escalation to World War Three,” TASS quoted Alexander Venediktov, Deputy Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, as saying.

He felt Ukraine’s application was propaganda, as the West understood the consequences of Ukrainian membership in NATO. “NATO members understood the suicidal nature of such a step,” he said.

Venediktov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s call for preventive nuclear strikes against Russia was dangerous and cautioned that a nuclear war would have catastrophic consequences for the world.

“We must remember: a nuclear conflict will affect absolutely the entire world” not only Russia and the collective West, but every country on this planet,” Venediktov said. “The consequences would be disastrous for all humanity.”

President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24 this year precisely on this issue, repeatedly railed against the United States for driving NATO’s eastward expansion, especially its courting of former Soviet Republics like Ukraine and Georgia which Moscow still regards as part of its own sphere of influence.

On September 21 also, he warned the West that he was not bluffing, as he was ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia against what he said was “nuclear blackmail” from major Western powers.

US President Joe Biden said the world faces the biggest risk of nuclear Armageddon since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Meanwhile, NATO will hold an annual nuclear preparedness exercise, known as “Steadfast Noon”, next week.

Russia and the US are, by far, the biggest nuclear powers, controlling nearly 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.