Julie Wilhelmsen at the NUPI says it is logical that Norway contributes more weapons to Ukraine but warns that Norway could contribute to an escalation of the war.
Earlier this week, the United States announced that Norway was among several countries sending heavier weaponry to Ukraine. For security reasons, the Norwegian authorities have not confirmed the information.
The weapons in question are armored vehicles of the type M109, which means that Norway is sending artillery. It is much heavier weaponry than what has been sent before, the newspaper Klassekampen writes.
“One must be aware that Norway’s contribution naturally falls into a larger investment on the part of the United States, which send increasingly heavier weapons – to a greater extent. It can be about more than enabling Ukraine to defend itself,” Wilhelmsen added.
A conflict between powers
She pointed out that the war could change from a purely defensive war to, increasingly, a conflict between the great powers. And the danger of escalation has increased, Wilhelmsen believes.
“Firstly, because no one seems interested in negotiations. Secondly, if there are such large arms supplies from the West that the Kremlin thinks it is realistic that Ukraine can take back Crimea by force, the Kremlin will act violently. I am convinced of that,” she said.
The M109 cannons have a range of about 30 kilometers.
“This is the heaviest artillery Norway has,” Colonel Kristian Lien, head of artillery and air defense at the Army Armed Forces, said.
Source : © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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Julie is a very sincere person, and her concern should concern us all. Just yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the West is waging Total War against Russia now. Peace Prize Norway feeding the war with heavy artillery only reinforces the Russians’ backs-to-the-wall perception, making them even more desperate and dangerous. There are a growing number of hardliners in Russia saying they should be waging Total War against us in return, and after 18-25 million dead in World War 2, the Russians know far more than Westerners what Total War *means*.
We can be sure Russian leaders and officers remember how horribly Iraqi officers’ families were mistreated after our 2003 victory over non-nuclear Iraq.
What is instead needed, of course, is Norway to urge the Kyiv government to accept the fair security treaty – including territorial concessions as Henry Kissinger urged to Davos, since the Kyiv leaders broke Ukraine’s sovereignty as well as the Atlantic Charter in 2014 with their Kyiv coup – it should have accepted to avoid this tragedy in the first place. Of course, American and European leaders urging it not to compromise pumped Volodymyr Zelensky up to *not* compromise, and we share that blame for the war.
Astonishingly, in Washington Post pro-war international affairs columnist David Ignatius wrote a column yesterday praising the Biden government for its “secret planning” for the war, and since Biden&Blinken decisively opposed the treaty and peace that makes it an *indicting* “secret planning” OF the war. And, again, by Nuremberg – 5Oct46 Economist, from Nuremberg – a government causing a war is responsible for all war crimes (inevitably) following.
Regarding that, international law experts believe there is enough evidence now that Vladimir Putin’s war policy toward the Ukrainians was or has become at least culturally genocidal in intent. On the other hand, early in the war the Lviv TV presenter wanting ethnic Russian children exterminated and the Ukrainian doctor wanting captured Russian soldiers castrated may have enflamed ethnic hatred themselves. And we the West have innumerable unpunished war criminals at the highest level, after our unjustified ergo war crime Mideast neocon wars/holocausts, like Libya.
In the States, leftist-progressive The Nation magazine publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel has called for an open public and Congressional discussion to re-examine our involvement in this dangerous war.
And Norway definitely could finally use the same, with credible and balancing people like Julie and Lt. Col. Tormod Heier being fairly and objectively heard as well as the pro-war others.
I again ask readers to carefully consider my column posted by Yahoo! News, “Lou Coatney: Russia now left with no choice but nuclear war.”
You propose a new Munich agreement. Did the Munich agreement in 1938 help to prevent the war? No! However, Czechoslovak Republic has lost the most industrially developed region. The same can happen in Ukraine since the occupated part of Ukraine is well developed in terms of industry.
P.S. Please do not forget Churchill’s words after Munich. From my memory: “… sometimes the government had to choose between war and shame. If they chose shame, they will get war as well…”
An even more urgent need for us here – considering the grave danger we and our families are in, with our governments playing nuclear chicken with Russia – is an EMERGENCY civil defense/sivilforsvars program NOW,
and parents and grandparents should be *emphatically* communicating this to national and kommune officals.
– Distributing now instead of hoarding the Jodix anti-radiation pills (which give only limited and temporary safety, at that), since there won’t be time for national or kommune governments to distribute them.
– Cleaning up and stockpiling with supplies fallout shelters previously designated. (Last I heard from Per Brekke (then at FFI) they have a capacity for only half of Norway’s current population … families.)
https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/de-glemte-rommene-1.14333670
– Identifying and stockpiling additional fallout shelters.
– Emergency law passed to allow volunteers (wearing COVID masks against the mold) to do FREE labor to accomplish the above.
– Having every man, woman, and child knowing in advance which (supplied) shelter to go to within 20 minutes of warning.
– Having shelter administrations – under Norwegian law instead of vigilante, mafiya, or other law – already designated and ready.
– And whatever else sivilforsvars administrators need done.
PUBLIC SAFETY *always* *should* have been TOP PRIORITY … instead.