Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto fears that Washington and London will fan the flames of war hysteria at an upcoming NATO foreign ministers meeting
NATO is painting itself into a corner by whipping up anti-Russia “war hysteria,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters on Thursday. The “psychosis” is causing Western leaders to adopt increasingly “crazy ideas” that could have disastrous consequences, he warned ahead of an upcoming informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
The Friday event is likely to only further escalate tensions, the nation’s top diplomat warned, adding that it could create an extremely dangerous situation.
“European colleagues [have] plunged … into an ever-deeper pit of war psychosis, and I believe that the presence of the Americans and British will only intensify this hysterical state,” Szijjarto said in Brussels. The minister also predicted that the meeting on Friday would be “marked by a more pro-war atmosphere than ever before.” Such an atmosphere would create the conditions for “more crazy ideas to gain traction,” he warned.
According to Szijjarto, allowing Kiev to use Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia is one such crazy idea. The Russian military has an ample supply of its own such weapons and will “respond in kind,” he said. “What will be the outcome? More deaths. Arms shipments increase the number of weapons on both sides of the frontline and result in more deaths.”
The issue of long-range strikes has become a hot topic in the West in recent weeks. In early May, Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated that Kiev had every right to use British weapons to strike targets inside Russia as well.
Following these statements were calls by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for Western donors of longer-range weapons to allow attacks on targets inside Russia. The NATO chief was supported by Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, who said there was “no reason” to prohibit Kiev from doing so. Several of the bloc’s members, including Poland, France and Germany, subsequently gave approval for such strikes.
According to the New York Times, US President Joe Biden could lift restrictions on the use of US-supplied weapons by Ukraine within weeks. Moscow has repeatedly warned that strikes on Russian territory with Western weaponry would constitute a major escalation and would entail “serious consequences.”
“These representatives of NATO countries, especially in Europe, particularly in small countries, must comprehend what they are gambling with,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this week, noting that many of these countries have “a small territory and a very dense population.”