EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR TUESDAY JUNE 27, 2023

It’s Time ‘To Fear Armageddon’

June 26, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Look at the world situation. On one side, there are the Global NATO leaders and forces pushing confrontation in every way, to bring down—end—Russia. On the other side, you have the government of Russia—a nuclear power, making clear that, “we will not be extinguished.” The stakes are nuclear annihilation.

Any evaluation of the strategic situation that is not on this level misses the point, even though there are incidents and “issues” deserving of careful evaluation. The armed mutiny staged against Russia June 23-24 continues under the fullest investigation, which includes the outside forces involved.

But the point is: It is time for people to fear Armageddon! And intervene to stop the Armageddon dynamic. That was the call to action today by Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She highly recommends an article that was posted June 22, before the dramatic weekend events in Russia. It is headlined, “The U.S. and Its Allies Are Playing ‘Russian Roulette;’ You’d Almost Think They Want a Nuclear War.”

The author, scholar Dmitry Trenin, on the Russian International Affairs Council, lays out the process whereby, “The fear of the atomic bomb, present in the second half of the 20th century, has disappeared. Nuclear weapons have been taken out of the equation. The practical conclusion is clear: there is no need to be afraid of such a Russian response” to any provocation you may do against Russia. Trenin presents the history of the geopolitics and degraded culture that went into creating this dangerous delusion.

Keep that in mind when looking at the events of the weekend in Russia, and the follow-on from the West. The Wagner Group and its head Yevgeny Prigozhin staged an armed insurrection beginning June 23, in its crazed “March for Justice” on Moscow, which was defused June 24 by Putin and Belarus President Lukashenko. Tonight President Putin gave a televised address to the nation, confirming the civic unity of the people, “All united behind the main thing—the responsibility for the fate of the Fatherland.”

But from the Western capitals comes the battle cry, in unison: Russia and Putin are on the way down! It is time to go in for the kill! Today, the Washington, D.C. Hudson Institute hosted a special event, on the topic of pumping even more firepower into Ukraine—ATACMS, F-16s, cluster munitions. They cheered: Don’t fear any nuclear threat! Go all out against Russia. Dismember it. The event was titled, “Mutiny in Russia: Assessing the Implications of Prigozhin’s March on Moscow.”

The same message—“Russia is down and on the way out”—comes through loud and clear in the “informational warfare” of the Western media over June 25-26. Typical headlines:

Washington Post: “Russian Crisis Casts Putin in a Weak Light ... President’s Authority and Whereabouts in Question.”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “Putin Is Naked!”

The Economist: “The Meaning of Prigozhin’s Short-Lived Mutiny: Vladimir Putin’s Inability To Prevent It Means He Failed at his Most Important Task.”

Financial Times: “The Putin System Is Crumbling.”

Today in Luxembourg, this line was asserted at the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of 27 European Union nations by EU High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, “The Russian state and Putin’s personal leadership are weakened.” Given the “internal instabilities and fragilities,” we can go all out to back Ukraine’s victory over Russia.

No mere rhetoric, this is the context of delusion in which an incident can trigger thoroughgoing nuclear obliteration. The stage is set for such a trigger over the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.

On June 23, the Kyiv regime’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov issued an evaluation claiming that the Zelenskyy government has evidence that Russia has put in readiness all it needs to commit a strike on the Zaporozhye plant, which will cause nuclear fallout. The only question is the date and time Moscow will do this.

This classic false-flag operation has been refuted already by Russian leaders, but the significance in Budanov’s lying charge is that the West is actually “playing Russian Roulette,” with the stakes being nuclear war.

The conclusion of the article by Dmitry Trenin, recommended by Zepp-LaRouche: “To avoid a general catastrophe, it is necessary to put fear of armageddon back into politics and the public consciousness. In the nuclear age, it is the only guarantee of preserving humanity.”

This is the goal of the Schiller Institute’s extraordinary responsibility in history. Join in.