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Press TV has conducted an interview with Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO International Network in Chicago, about Russia’s move to take control of Ukrainian naval bases situated inside Crimea. 

- We have heard Moscow time and again saying it is committed to restoring stability within the region and yet we are seeing a concerted effort on the part of NATO and the West as a whole to give this rhetoric and this crisis a military nature. What do you make of it?

- First of all, Nowruz (New Year) greetings to your viewers. May this be a new year of peace unlike the past 20 years or more unfortunately in the post-Cold War period.

I’m afraid what we’re seeing right now is the ‘end game’ if you will, of 20 years of NATO expansion – actually 15 years of NATO expansion beginning in 1999.

At this very date in Tehran, March 24th, 15 years ago NATO began its first war, which was a 78-day air war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Subsequent to that of course and at the very same time they incorporated the first new members since the end of the Cold War – Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

NATO has subsequently waged a full-fledged war in Asia in Afghanistan; in Africa against Libya; it’s conducting permanent naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. It has in fact become a global military force dominated by the United States.

Its members and its partners have encroached not only on the Russian border, but on the borders of Iran and China as well.

And what we’re seeing right now is arguably the final push by the United States and its major NATO allies to push this military bloc – unprecedented in history in terms of size and scope – right up to the Russian border; up to the 1,500 some-odd kilometers whereby Ukraine borders with Russia.

The most dangerous aspect of what we heard today and you relayed it to your viewers is the fact that the top military commander of this 28-nation military bloc – one which consists incidentally including partners as well as members of over 70 nations in the world – that is, over one third of the countries on the planet – is stating that not only is Russia allegedly guilty of aggression in Crimea - It is not; but that somehow Russia covets a breakaway region of Moldova, Transnistria and has its troops poised to attack Moldova.

That is sheer nonsense. It’s a provocation. It’s actually the reverse of the truth.

I for one have been warning since the beginning of this Ukraine crisis that the US and its NATO [allies] were planning a military attack against Transnistria, which is bordered by Moldova to its west, Ukraine to its east and just as Moldova is likely to be absorbed into Romania – which is a full NATO member - so a Moldavian attack against Transnistria in one direction, a Ukrainian one by the junta in Kiev from the other would have the support of Romania in service of NATO.

So what NATO is doing is trying to portray its own aggressive designs on the breakaway region of Transnistria as being a defensive maneuver in some manner to protect Moldova against Russia. Nothing could be further from the truth.

- We have seen the West time and again miscalculating Russia’s response, its might and its capabilities. Is this going to be one of those instances as well?

- If it is it could be one of the more dangerous in history.

I’m not the only person I’m sure who’s drawn the conclusion that the current tensions between the world’s two major nuclear powers – and let us recall that even though Russia is a very circumscribed and weakened version of the former Soviet Union - it is along with the United States the world’s major nuclear power.

It not only has an arsenal roughly comparable to the United States, but has delivery systems analogous to those of Washington.

So, any tension that increases to the level that it has now - and I for one can’t remember quite anything of this intensity since arguably the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 - is a threat not only to the region of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, but ultimately to the world and this is a cause of very serious concern.

We know that the US is moving dozens of war planes into Poland and Lithuania – ten F15s into Lithuania; they’re rotating twelve F-16s into Poland; France is talking about moving war planes into the Baltic region as well; NATO has AWACS aircraft over Poland and Romania.

There is a major military buildup particularly on Russia’s northwest border and this could be a threat not only to Russia, but maybe to the nation of Belarus, which is also I believe in the gun sights of the United States, NATO as well as Transnistria.

There’s another autonomous region within Moldova called Gagauzia, which could also be threatened.

Their parliament voted last week for independence as did the reassertion of independence of Transnistria.

These unresolved conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union are now rich grounds for NATO military provocation and escalation. And they’re so dangerously close to the Russia border in every instance.

You have to remember the two nations I mentioned, Lithuania and Poland where there is a massive military buildup of US war planes, both have borders with Russia.