Washington, USA (Weltexpress). The EU does not want to go to war over Ukraine, and Russia’s recent test launch of the new Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBN) put them further on edge, Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO, told Foreign Policy magazine in an email.
“They [Europeans] are not ready for war over Ukraine and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was making them nervous, especially after the IRBM launch,” he said.
The ex-Pentagon official suggested that with US President-elect Donald Trump soon to take office again, some in Europe would be “secretly pleased” to see a peace deal get done “so that they don’t have to spend more money on Ukraine and so that the killing stops”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on November 21 that the United States and its NATO allies had announced their decision to grant Kiev permission to use long-range high-precision weapons, following which US- and UK-made missiles attacked Russian military sites in the Kursk and Bryansk regions.
In response to these attacks, Russia test-launched its latest Oreshnik hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missiles with conventional warheads against Ukraine’s major Yuzhmash defense enterprise in Dnepr (formerly Dnepropetrovsk), Putin elaborated.
The Russian leader stressed that the West’s inflammatory actions could trigger serious consequences if the Ukraine conflict escalates further.
