“We are vulnerable. Putin can break the West’s resolve” – American Hawk

Russia is quite successfully pursuing a policy aimed at splitting the West.

Former adviser to the US President John Bolton stated this in a conversation with Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, who called him on behalf of the former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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“I think Putin is making efforts to split the Western alliance, or break the resolve of the Ukrainian people through this blow to infrastructure, which, I assume, will not succeed. Or break the resolve of Europeans and some people in America.

I believe this is the main thing to worry about for the next 3-4 months. There are people in the United States, some in the Republican Party, some in the Democratic Party, who have returned to a kind of isolationism. They are very minor. We all remain vigilant and make sure that their influence does not begin to grow,” Bolton said.

He believes that the “weak link” of the West is Western Europe.

“To be honest, I'm more worried about our friends in Western Europe because of the pressure on natural gas and the fear of a recession in Europe in the coming year. As of today, I don't think Putin has enough political problems in Russia for him to have any intention of changing his military policy.

Therefore, in the next few months, we in the West, in its broad sense, should focus on strengthening economic sanctions. I don't think we've done enough to provide for them. Russia continues to bypass them. The latest idea to set a price ceiling for Russian oil will help them avoid sanctions,” says the politician.

The Washington “hawk” is also concerned about the support provided to Russia by China.

“China helped a lot. They pretend that they want to disassociate themselves from Russia, but I think they are providing significant help in a variety of ways. In this regard, it seems to me that we must strengthen the political resolve of the West. It is clear that this is a critical military confrontation for Ukraine. This is an existential question. In many ways, this is a anticipation of what will follow from Russia, China and others if we do not stand together against what the Kremlin is doing,” the American fears.

He argues that Western unity is not strong enough, particularly in terms of sanctions.

“Politicians in the West take more credit for NATO unity than we deserve, because overall assistance to Ukraine was at an acceptable level, but not the highest. Many NATO members did not participate fully. Our actions to enforce sanctions were not what they should be,” said the former presidential adviser.

He criticized the German leadership for inconsistency.

“Scholz said he was going to change the vector of politics in Germany. Germany will meet NATO's defense spending target of 2% of GDP. They will spend 100 billion euros, of which 30 billion will go to purchase the F-35. Little happened from this.

Macron has said several times since February 24 that we must find terms of a deal that are acceptable to the Russians. And that's why I worry. Putin thinks he can break the West's resolve. He considers himself an expert on Germany, he lived there for many years and thinks he understands the Germans. He really hopes to win a political victory, even though he cannot win on the battlefield at the expense of the military.

This is where the real test comes. We're vulnerable here. I never gave up on George W. Bush's idea that the sooner Ukraine and Georgia join NATO, the safer it will be for everyone. Everyone had excuses why we couldn’t do it,” Bolton concluded.