War with NATO?

Military expert stuns even Russian TV presenter: "Inevitable in the near future"

Created: 12/16/2022 8:03 am

By: Vincent Bussow

A truck with missiles is returning from the front near Bakhmut to reload its weapons.

© IMAGO/Celestino Arce Lavin/ZUMA Wire

On Russian state television, a military analyst predicts that he will clash with the western military alliance in the spring of 2023.

Moscow – The media propaganda in Russia regularly attracts attention with abstruse theses and blatant false claims.

Shortly after the start of the Ukraine war, jokes about nuclear attacks on New York made the rounds on Russian state television.

Now, however, the military scientist Konstantin Siwkow expressed himself in a way that even made the moderator suspicious: A war between Russia and NATO is expected to break out as early as spring 2023.

"We have to produce more powerful and more modern weapon systems, since a collision with NATO is inevitable in the near future." With these words begins a video excerpt that has received almost 200,000 views on Twitter in the past few days.

The clip comes from the program

on the state broadcaster Rossija 1.

Konstantin Sivkov, who wrote the quote, is a prominent supporter of the war against Ukraine, according to

.

Russia's state television and its role in the Ukraine war

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin bans the spread of alleged false news about Russia's armed forces.

Officially, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his followers are only talking about a "special military operation".

Violators of the new law face up to 15 years in prison.

In March 2022, journalist Marina Ovsyannikova dared to stage a live protest on Russian state television against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia fined them.

The distribution of the Russian state media RT and Sputnik has been banned in the EU since the beginning of March because they are accused of war propaganda.

In July, RT France failed in its case against the EU broadcasting ban before the European Court of Justice.

The offshoot RT Germany is also not allowed to broadcast in this country. 

Military analyst on Russia's state TV: Discussion about nuclear war with NATO

"Inevitable?" asks Yevgeny Popov, the show's presenter.

Popov, who himself sits in the State Duma for the pro-Putin party United Russia, is visibly stunned by Sivkov's statement.

In the course of the conversation, he asks further questions, apparently to make sure that he has understood his guest correctly: "An armed conflict with NATO?" he asks, as well as whether it is supposed to be a nuclear war.

The military analyst denies the latter: "Not necessarily."

Vladimir Putin: The political career of the Russian head of state in pictures

View photo gallery

Sivkov justifies his prophecy with the fact that Poland would "openly" prepare for an invasion of Kaliningrad.

He therefore assumes an escalation between Russia and NATO in the spring.

"The probability of this conflict is, in my estimation, high." It is unclear whether these claims are a tactic intended to serve as a deterrent.

However, Sivkov has attracted attention in the past with fantasies about a war between Russia and the West.