The text below is an excerpt from a longer essay from Rostislav Ishchenko, a prominent Russian commentator.

This article originally appeared at the Russian website Aktual'nyie Kommentarii (Current Commentary). It was translated by KA at The Vineyard of the Saker.

US trying to pull Russia into a war with its neighbors

Not all politicians and experts recognise that a state of war exists between Russia and the United States. Despite Washington’s clearly stated strategy regarding regime change in Russia and the thwarting of any opportunities for Moscow to carry out any kind of independent policy.

Many people, who have for decades been accustomed to the belief that war between the USSR (Russia) and the United States would be an apocalypse, when bombs and rockets with nuclear warheads would fall from the sky more abundantly than winter snow, still continue to call the current situation a crisis, a second edition of the Cold War, but not a war in the truest sense of the word.

However, the Cold War was contrived so that the two opposing superpowers and their allies could fight each other even though direct armed conflict was impossible. Incidentally, it should be noted that war and armed conflict are two different terms.

Not every armed conflict is a war and not every war is an armed conflict. The Cold War wasn’t called the Cold War for nothing. The bottom line is that the USSR as the losing side, suffered losses (physical, human and political) which were greater than those of Germany in 1945.

Now there are terms in use such as “information war”, “network-centric warfare”, “hybrid war”, “new generation warfare”. However, they all contain the term war, that is they describe the conflict between states with aggressive objectives.

In some cases modern wars do involve armed conflict. However, the main participants prefer to conduct them on foreign ground and predominantly by proxy. It is especially chic (along with an almost 100% guarantee of success) to draw your opponent into direct participation in armed conflict while yourself staying on the outside. The USSR managed to pull this off with the Americans in Vietnam and the US reciprocated by drawing the USSR into Afghanistan.

Now Washington is trying with all its strength to pull Russia into an armed conflict with third parties. It all began with attempts to organise a Ukrainian-Russian war and is continuing with an attempt to create a Russian-European armed conflict.

Naturally, we are not talking about unleashing a war in nuclear format. Not for now. Although, from the point of view that the situation could possibly deteriorate out of control, the American attempts to sacrifice several members of the EU and NATO in order to draw Russia into an armed conflict with at least some part of the European Union is already quite dangerous. In general, the conflict between nuclear superpowers is always fraught with dangers, particularly if the war (regardless of whether hybrid or cold) results in the elimination of one of the opponents.

Nevertheless we can be optimists and believe that the war will end in the same format it began, when, for example, the army of Novorossiya takes Lvov or Warsaw or Vilnius. One could claim that this is impossible, but in 1989 nobody believed in the collapse of the Soviet Union (and it was already in full swing). In addition, the Americans themselves said that the next target after Mariupol will be Vilnius. And the Americans know best. Moreover they are very good at making predictions in military conflicts.

In 2008 they said that Ukraine was next in line for war after Georgia, and here you are, not even seven years later and civil war has broken out in Ukraine, which Kiev with Washington’s approval for some reason calls a Ukrainian-Russian war. So if the Americans say that the military road leads from Mariupol to Vilnius, you don’t of course have to believe them, but you do need to listen.