Ian Proud: Senior British diplomat for twenty four years
including four and half years in Moscow, from 2014-2019.
https://www.diplomaticexcellence.com/about
https://www.conservapedia.com/Ian_Proud
https://www.prouddiplomat.com/
Ian: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Last night at just after 10:00 p.m. UK time, as I got off a plane from Istanbul, having returned from a conference in Moscow, I was greeted on the jetway of the plane by five police officers, not in uniform, just in suits, who took me into custody for 3 hours, seized all of my electronic equipment, took DNA samples, fingerprints, subjected me to all sorts of intrusive, frankly at times, deeply tedious questions.
It was clear that none of them had any idea at all about geopolitics.
They were there just to shake me down because I dared to visit Russia. My name is Ian Proud. I'm a peace-monger.
I promote peace. If you'd like to support my work, then please do consider subscribing to my channel.
What is the background to this? I was invited to attend the Valdai Discussion Club which is a yearly event of academics that has been taking place in Russia since 2004.
This is one of a whole series of academic seminars that Russians like to organize on all sorts of issues around politics and economics.
There's nothing really to see here. A former head of MI6 has been Fiona Hill that deeply optimistic and positive chancellor of DM University once went, the former British ambassador to Moscow's Tony Brenton has been, it's a bunch of academics talking about stuff with counterparts from all across the world, the only difference is that it's a very prestigious event because at the end the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, makes a speech.
That doesn't mean that people came to the conference are endorsing anything about the policy of the Russian President, but it is a fantastic opportunity to hear directly from the President of Russia about his thoughts on world events. And let's be honest, right now world events are hotter than they've been for decades, possibly since the Cuban missile crisis, given all the rhetoric from the European side around Kaliningrad.
So we had three and a half hours' time with Putin with lots of members of the audience asking questions. I didn't.
I kept my powder dry.
But the thing is I am different. I knew that there might be a risk that I would be arrested.
Let's just call it what it was. I was briefly arrested.
As my wife said to me, and I don't wish to put myself above anybody else who attends the conference, I'm not really like just a normal academic going.
I am a senior representative or was, of Her Majesty's, at the time, government.
I was actively involved in sanctions against Russia. I authorized very many sanctions against Russia after the war broke out in 2022.
Everybody knows my views on sanctions that had been a complete disaster.
I was in Moscow after the Salisbury incident and patched the Embassy back together after we lost one third of our staff in the space of a month.
I am not like a regular academic going.
The British government sees me going as a threat because I represented my country in diplomacy in Russia. And the UK and European nation states have decided, as I mentioned in my previous video, that they will at no point engage in diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.
The diplomacy is weakness. Talking with the adversary is somehow a gift to President Putin. We can't do that. The only way forward is war, not diplomacy.
The war in Ukraine can only end if we inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
Even though that doesn't appear even remotely likely. Even though as rhetoric continues, we seem to creep closer towards nuclear war in circumstances where during my time in Russia, I was left in no doubt from some hardliners, not everybody in Russia is a hardliner, that there was increasing calls for President Putin to approve the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Should there be any moves on Russian territory including in Kaliningrad? That person told me that Russia has developed an unimaginable missile that can have a payload of 12 different 75 kiloton bombs.
It's quite remarkable that we should be even thinking about the complete obliteration of whole cities in Europe, Warsaw disappearing and so on because we're unwilling to enter into diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine. And yet diplomacy is the only way that the war in Ukraine will end. We do not have the economic means or political legitimacy or the soldiers or the equipment or the battle-preparedness to defeat Russia. Ukraine on its own has never been able to defeat Russia. That's always been clear despite Zelensky's continued entreaties for more money, more basification and more backsliding on the important reforms that his country needs, including having elections to give his people a choice about what Ukrainians want for their future after the war ends, given that two-thirds of Ukrainians want the war end, to end as soon as possible, through negotiated settlement.
So my going was seen as a threat by the UK government that I'll be representing something that they absolutely refuse to countenance. Diplomacy with Russia, talking with the adversary.
Diplomacy isn't about friendship. It's not about going to summits with your mates and discussing things you're already agreeing on and giving Zelensky a few more bidding in in the process of doing that.
It's about talking to the people with whom you most disagree. So that's why I was arrested yesterday.
I had anticipated this. I had posted a couple of videos on this with Professor Richard Sakwa as he was subject to the same treatment last year.
I almost expected it to happen in my light-hearted closing remarks at the Valdai forum when we're after the very serious and intensive discussions of the 4-day event invited to offer some more light-hearted interventions.
We asked what we'd learned from the event. And after my four and a half hour detention and interrogation by the FSB, which to be perfectly honest, given my background, didn't come as a as big a surprise as being arrested by UK police officers who I'd worked alongside in many complex operations in the past.
I expected the FSB to give me a rolling over and that's what they did. And I didn't take it personally. I do take this much more personally, but I said in my closing remarks that what I learned was that the FSB liked me every bit as much as they did when I worked at the British Embassy in Moscow. And that I was about to learn, that the British government disliked me even more than before I set off on this first trip to Russia in seven years.
I thought long and hard about going. I thought that maybe I shouldn't go because of my previous work on sanctions at the Embassy in Moscow.
I took advice from the former British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Tony Brenton, for his views on go or not go. And what he said to me was that the Valdai is an excellent event, that I should absolutely try to go if I could, but that I should simply inform the foreign office that I was going to avoid any misunderstandings.
So to ensure complete clarity about my intentions, I wrote to the foreign office to explain to them my reasons for going to this event.
I explained to them that I had been invited. I wasn't being paid and I did not receive any payment.
The organizers paid for my flights and the accommodation while I was there and the food, but I received no money for this.
I reassured them that I would continue to abide by my commitments under the Official Secrets Act, which I take very seriously, having had access to top secret intelligence material throughout my 24-year diplomatic career and obviously having known the identities of UK intelligence agencies as well, including in Russia, just for the complete avoidance of doubt so that I wasn't going hiding anything wasn't going on any secret mission wasn't going to offer my services to Russian intelligence in some way. I was going to an academic conference and at the end of that I got the benefit of actually hearing directly from President Putin on how he sees the world today, nothing to see here, but after, I was arrested at Heathrow airport yesterday. It was fascinating.
The UK police officer initially approached me cheeky chappy. Oh, do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Where have you just come from? Well, obviously it's got off flight from {Mr. St.?} I come from Moscow. So, I just want to ask you a few questions and we start walking down the jetway. I wanted to let you know that obviously we're having this discussion because of certain provision under the counter man, but it's not as scary as it sounds. He said, really trying to make it as soft and cuddly as he possibly could.
And with other police officers around me, as if I'm going too bald for a middle-aged man, I'm escorted to some room. I'm escorted through immigration into some police area. My phone is immediately taken from me and put in a bag. Thankfully, I'd sent a message to a solicitor that I know before that was impossible. They immediately read out incredibly detailed reason, you know, for why this has happened. And I've got it here. Here it is. This is what they gave to me and read out and I want to just, this is the boring bit, but I want you to understand exactly why I was arrested at Heather airport.
[You may skip this section]:
And it says, "I've been detained under Paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 of the counterterrorism and border security act 2019 [Schedule 3]. This is so an examining officer may exercise powers under the schedule for the purpose either determining whether you appear to be a person who is or has been engaged in hostile activity or whether your presence in the border area is connected with your entering or leaving Northern Ireland."
Somebody needs to give the police drafting skills. "You'll only be questioned to determine if your presence in the border area is connected with the entering or leaving Northern Ireland in order to satisfy the requirements of paragraph 1 brackets two of Schedule 3."
Jesus Christ. "A person is or has been engaged in hostile activity for the purposes of schedule 3. If the person is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of a hostile act that is or may be [A] carried out for or on behalf of a state other than the United Kingdom or [B] otherwise in the interest of a state other than the United Kingdom. An act is a hostile act if it (a) threatens national security, (b) threatens the economic well-being of the United Kingdom in a way that is relevant to the interests of national security, or (c) is an act of serious crime."
I mean, I've been to a conference with middle-aged academics. I'm a middle-aged ex- diplomat.
What the hell did they think I was doing? I was in a hotel in Moscow oblast for four days completely closeted away from the outside world with middle-aged academics from all over the world.
You'll not be examined under this path for more than 6 hours beginning with the time you are first questioned under schedule 3. You're not under criminal investigation. You're not under criminal investigation and are not under arrest on suspicion of having committed an offense. So that they have no suspicion that I've committed an offense. I'm not arrested, but I'm detained and I can't leave. It's like the Hotel California. I can check out anytime I like, but I just can't leave. It's like being, it literally is what they say about being a member of the diplomatic service.
For this reason, you're not being issued with a caution and you do not have the right to remain silent. Should the circumstances change in the course of the examination, you'll not be notified.
So, I've been told that I'm not being cautioned. I'm not suspected of anything. I'm not arrested, but I don't have the right to remain silent. So, if I don't answer their questions, I'm going to be charged with an offense.
It's like it's almost worse than being arrested because when you're arrested, and I worked for the police before I became a British diplomat.
When you're arrested, you get a caution. You have the right to remain silent, but it may harm your defense if you do not say now something which you later rely on in court. Anything that you do say will be given in evidence. That's what they say, my duties. I've got duties. I have duties. I'm not suspected of anything. I'm not arrested.
I'm not allowed to be silent. But I now have duties. This is a job. Are they paying me for this? Cuz I didn't get paid to go to Russia.
Whilst being examined, you must answer questions put to you by the examining officer. – Yaval!
Give the examining officer any information in your possession which the officer requests, including the pins and passcodes to any electronic device in your possession. I literally had to write down the pins and passcodes to my phone and my on my laptop. And if I hadn't, I would have been charged with a criminal offense. So, I did cuz I've got nothing to hide.
Give the examining officer on request either a valid passport. I mean, how did they think I got into the country without a valid passport? God give me strength. Which includes a photograph. Yeah.
Or another document which establishes your identity. I've just come from Russia. I think I went there on a driving license.
Declare whether you have any documents with you of a kind specified by the examining officer. Give the examining officer on request any document which you have which is and is of a kind specified by the officer. Cooperate with any search of your personal property. At this point, I get searched.
The guy puts on his latex gloves. I start away with he's going to reach for the Vaseline and things might get awkward. Thankfully, that didn't happen.
But he investigated everything about my person, every nook and cranny in my clothing that is before going through all my sort of luggage. I mean just had cloths and you know seizing my laptop and my camera that I set up to record interviews having already seized, you know, my phone immediately we got into the room. So I was searched all of my property was gone through don't know what they were hoping to find apart from dirty pants but it's all gone through.
They found a micro SD card which was my memory stick to the use of my camera because the camera doesn't have in-built memory. So basically I can't post any of the videos that I took in Valdai until I get this equipment back which could be a week. They got Sergey Karaganov. I've got Raul Mälk who was one of Estonia's first foreign ministers after the collapse of the Soviet Union and adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev. Got {verb?} Desai you know got various people. Can't post those until I get my equipment back. If I ever get it back, they've basically stolen it. So, hang tight for those videos, guys.
If I fail to comply with any of these duties or willingly obstruct or seek to frustrate a search or examination contacted conducted under Section 3, you could be prosecuted for a criminal offense under Paragraph 23 of Schedule 3.
Jesus Christ. During your detention, any examining officer can take any steps which are reasonably necessary for photographing, measuring, or identifying you with or without your consent. Can you imagine them wrestling me to the ground to take my photograph? Just take my photograph. I mean, what do I care? It's like any reasonable steps to take my photograph. I mean, come on. If you're detained in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the police officer can also take your fingerprints. I mean, this was like a scene from a computer says not in Little Britain. You know, they had this like this when I arrived in in Moscow before my shakedown by the FSB. They got a quite simple system where you put all of your fingers on and then you put your thumbs on and they take your fingerprints. With this, I had a guy literally holding my hand to put it down. It didn't work and it beep beep beep. And it took about 10 freaking minutes just to take my photo. Beep beep beep. Oh, that didn't work. Beep beep beep. Oh, I don't know if I have to reset it. Beep beep beep.
Metropolitan police. Computer says no. Jesus Christ. If you're detained at the police station, it's gone. No, it's gone.
Any answer or information that you provide orally in response to a question asked during the examination cannot be used as evidence in criminal proceedings. So, anything I say, they can't use in criminal proceedings.
This however will not be the case where you are prosecuted for willfully failing to comply with a duty imposed or willfully obstructing or seeking to frustrate a sexual examination under a virtue of section schedule 3 or where you are prosecuted for perjury.
Anyway, it will also be possible for all answers given in response put to you in Schedule 3 examination be used as evidence in a situation where you have been prosecuted for an offense other than those mentioned above where, in giving evidence, you made a statement that is inconsistent with all matter or information given. So basically if they think I'm lying, I didn't lie, they can use the evidence against me. So therefore they can use anything I say as evidence against me. So they're saying well, we can't use the information you've said but actually we can if we want to, if you've been really naughty boy been really, really naughty boy we can do want someone informed. I had my wife informed and she was frankly worried sick about this I mean in fairness, she did expect it to happen.
For some reason she was far more worried about how I would be treated in Russia. And I told her, "Darling, you need to be far more worried about having treated when I get back to the United Kingdom." Cuz at least I knew what to expect from the FSB having gone up against them to four and a half years. So, my wife was informed. I mean, her stress was through the roof. My son stayed up.
Thankfully, I'd I texted my solicitor beforehand and I was able to talk to somebody there, but there's I mean, I had no rights. I mean, I literally had no rights. I just had to kind of talk to them, which I did.
If you're deemed detained in a citizen of a Commonwealth country, so that's it. That's a bit of document. This is a copy of the thing where they put all of my equipment they've seized.
They said, "You don't have to sign if you don't want to." I said, "Well, do I need to sign it?" I said, "Well, then I won't sign it." I'm just like they got my one Galaxy Z-fold and SIM, one Lenovo laptop, one digital camera, one SD card, examining signature refused. Anyway, so endeth, and in the end, I mean, you know, these police officers were doing their job and they were courteous, don't get me wrong. And in the end we're having a pretty decent chat. I was telling them some anecdotes of doing the G8 summit and stuff and you know I mean, I was really seriously annoyed, but there's frankly no point getting antsy with them. Somebody on high had told them to do this while I was in Moscow. I posted a rather ironic photograph of me in a suit at the Valdai forum saying rare sighting of British diplomat in in Russia.
UK government organizes an inquiry. It must be a mistake. I mean clearly said with my you know characteristic sort of humor. The former British defense attaché to Moscow retweeted my post calling me a Moscow collaborationist because I had attended a conference with middle age different academics.
So that was that. So, at around 1:00 a.m., just after 1:00 a.m., I was finally released from custody without my possessions, deeply stressed, exhausted, and just wanted to get home.
So, I had a lovely taxi driver, working class guy like me, and we had a good old chat in the car, and we stopped at Fleet Services, and I bought a couple of ready-made cans of G&T.
And that was that. So, my wife was up, my son was sleeping on the sofa waiting for me to come back.
You know, can you imagine having to tell your kids that you've been arrested by the police because you've been to a conference with middle-aged academics that so just happened to have an audience with President Putin at the end and Sergey Lavrov came along for sort of a talk during the middle of it. I mean, what an utter disgrace that this should happen to me. I served my country for 24 years as a diplomat.
You go to Whitehall and the place leaks like a colander. If there's any secrets, you always find them in the Daily Mail.
I never leaked a single secret throughout my time in the diplomatic service. That commitment to secrecy is something that I hold very dearly. I would never sell out that commitment just because I wholeheartedly disagree with the policy of my government and that they should treat me this way, I think is an absolute disgrace.
And more importantly than that, because I'm just another kind of name on a spreadsheet, quite frankly, more than that, what does it say about free speech?
That, you know, the war in Ukraine is going badly. Bridges in Kiev are being hit. The energy infrastructure is going to be completely obliterated. Nobody wants to engage in talks. If you say, well, actually, should we not pursue a different way through diplomacy?
If you say that and you're arrested, what does that say about free speech in the United Kingdom in circumstances where we spend a lot of time lecturing other countries on their human rights, their rule of law, their democratic backsliding? What does it say about the United Kingdom? That I can be arrested.
Having served in a war zone, having served in a disaster zone after the tsunami in 2004, having done my bit in Russia, having authorized sanctions, having never revealed a secret, a single secret, having never been weak and spineless enough to work for a foreign intelligence agency, what does that say about freedom of speech when even your diplomats get arrested?
It's almost like the United Kingdom is turning into Nazi Germany. That you can be denounced, imprisoned, and much worse if you don't agree with Hitler.
What does that say about the United Kingdom? They arrested me. And trust me, if they can arrest me, then they can arrest every one of you. And that should concern us all if we live long enough to see the moment when we get off a plane and some police officers are waiting to just have some like questions with you and take all of your equipment.
What an utter shambles on Russia on the Valdai Club. Enough of that nonsense. When you watch a western mainstream press right now, all you see is that Russia is collapsing. It's on its knees. The economy is going to crumble. Nobody's got petrol and all these things. That is absolutely not my impression at all.
Obviously Moscow is a microcosm of the country as a whole and not necessarily an illustrative microcosm of the country as a whole, but I lived in Moscow for four and a half years and having not been, I can offer some insights into how it's changed. We spent most of our time about 2 hours' drive outside of Moscow in the middle of nowhere.
So I saw a lot of towns as we're driving through and I was literally like a sponge absorbing every single sort of image that I saw as we're kind of driving through Moscow Oblast to get to the frankly bath the lovely kind of resort where the conference was held. This is not a country on its knees.
A couple of people, Richard Sakwa saw some oil storage facilities that have been hit by drones and were burnt out. A lot of petrol stations didn't have petrol.
It was clear that they were prioritizing only having 95 octane gasoline and diesel and not having any other fuel sort of variants. That was clear but whenever there was a fuel station open I didn't see a single queue. So you know the people are getting their fuel from somewhere, cars were on the road.
So you know the Russians, you know, not getting enough fuel, is that is absolutely not the case. Yes, there are shortages, but yes, they seem to be managing.
Traveling back into Moscow on the last day for the plenary with President Putin was well, I mean, I be completely honest and say I felt really quite nostalgic about it. I mean, I live there four and a half years as my home. My kids grew up there. My daughter was 7 months old when we arrived. I mean, what do you expect? Like, I should hate a place I live in?
Yeah. Who wants to go live somewhere that they feel like the most miserable person on the planet for the four and a half years of their time? No one.
But we went to the city of Moscow, the financial district, and that has transformed a lot. New skyscrapers have gone up. We all sort of obviously, we were in a break accord capsule because President Putin was coming, you know, but it looked remarkable and I felt, yeah, really nostalgic and yeah, I mean I apologize but slightly happy, you know, to be back because the embassy that I worked in was just a kilometer and a half from where the meeting with Putin was. I sometimes jogged that way during my lunch hours. I mean, I normally went the other way down towards Luzhniki Stadium, but sometimes I went towards the city. It was tremendous. And after when we finally got out at 10:00, the buses, because a whole bunch of us went round to this restaurant, which is just around the corner from a restaurant I used to go to with my family at the weekends.
Yeah, it was it was joyful. And the Hotel Ukraine, look it up if you don't know what it is, was just lit up. I mean, Jesus Christ. Yeah. I mean, don't believe all the scare stories about sort of Moscow on its knees.
That's absolutely the last impression that I that I got. So, I mean, the conference itself was very, very thought-provoking. It it's a fabulous event. Apart from the FSB shakedown when I left, when I arrived, apart from the SA15 shakedown when I got back to the UK, I mean literally kind of hated by both, but both intelligence agencies. All of the bit in the middle was fabulous, hanging out with academics, you know, Richard Sakwa and Marandi was there, all sorts of people, obviously the Russian side, Fyodor Lukyanov, Sergey Karaganov, all these kind of folk, you know, seeing the utter be amusement of people from Asia about the kind of policy line that kind of western nations are taking was fascinating and it kind of prompted different thoughts as well at the time, but you know it was illuminating but also deeply depressing because unfortunately it reinforced in me a feeling that, you know, we're headed towards war with Russia and we're just assuming that Russia won't use nuclear weapons. And I worry, having got all of our kind of assessments wrong about Russia in the war so far, that that could end up with lots of us dying far too soon.
That's why we need a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. That's why we need diplomacy. That's why we need former diplomats going like me to Russia without fear with respect, but going there to kind of hear their side, try and find common ground, understanding, try and map out pathways out of this terrible mess that we've got into which has ended up killing or injuring over two million people so far. We have diplomacy. We need diplomacy.
But what we have is repression in the United Kingdom. That I should be arrested, a former diplomat, for simply going to a conference should be a worrying sign to everybody watching this. I fear this repression of free speech in the United Kingdom is only going to get worse. I fear that more people will be arrested if they make the mistake of saying something that the government didn't want them to say or they go somewhere that the government didn't want them to go.
If they can do it to me, they can do it to you. But I can tell you one thing, after all the experiences that I had in my career, if they think they're going to scare me, they better try a hell of a lot harder than they did last night.
We need peace. We need diplomacy. We need everybody to kind of get on board with pushing our ridiculous globalist governments to look under the hood and see how much they failed. The people of Ukraine, the people of Europe, and also the people of Russia. We spent all of our time arguing about whose fault for the war starting. Well, it's Russia's fault because they invaded. Well, it's the West fault because of NATO expansion. Of course, in the West, we're locked into the blame game. We can't have diplomacy because Russia's to blame. Well, that is not a strategy. That's just denial.
We're never going to agree on who's at fault for the war starting. Russia will never agree with us. We will never agree with Russia. And when I say we, what I mean is our governments, not necessarily me.
Obviously, I have my own views which I've clearly stated. If we spend all our time arguing about whose fault it was, we're going to end up in a nuclear escalation before we know it. We need diplomacy and we need it now. We need our police to stop repressing people like me who are promoting that.
Please do consider subscribing to my channel to support my work. We need more peace-mongers now more than ever before, because I'm afraid to say that the world is getting a much more dangerous place and the number of diplomats in the world is dying to the point near extinction it seems, at least here in the United Kingdom.
Thank you so much for listening.
§COMMENT: One would hope that Ian Proud suffers no further negative consequences from this event, unlike Jacgues Baud who was sanctioned by Switzerland, of all places, so that he is essentially de-banked so living is difficult. Same for Scott Ritter who was harassed for his travels and also debanked. The West is locking into War and tolerates no resistance. As I wrote in the latest post, this international "othering," this calling other nations "threats," should be considered a war crime, since it is the exact theme of the chief Nazi lawyer, Carl Schmitt, to reduce politics to only "friend or foe." That embracing of Hate allows all other war crimes. This hate galls these western fools into a tight ball, like a rubber-band ball, with only one focus: War. Hate precludes dialogue because minds are not just closed, they are sealed. With zero trust there can be no diplomacy. If these Western "leaders" were not so sealed in their hate, they too could have gone to the Valdai Discussion Club, or earlier, to the St. Petersberg International Economic Forum.
Here's one of the most absolutely shocking parts of President Vladimir Vladimirovich's address at Valdai:
(In translation): <...> "But we are confident that in the strategic perspective as the world moves away from western hegemony, the global situation will gradually change for the better toward a more stable democratic and free multipolar international order.
However, it is also obvious that on the path to such a world order, various kinds of risks await us. We consistently advocate for the UN structure to reflect all the diversity of the world and for the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East to play a much more substantial role in the organization. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that the transformation of the UN is by no means only an expansion of the Security Council and other measures for more balanced geographic representation of countries in the bodies of international governance. It also means new substance and content in the organization's work, priority areas of its activity, including promising ones."
See how you could be arrested returning home from listening to such propaganda? ;>}
Statements by Russia are policy, not positioning, don't set them alongside tweets and rants by the psychopathic Toddler. Believe what is plainly stated. These Western Elites, having disconnected from the will of their electorate, work now solely in the interests of the war industry lobby with the glint in their eye of brave leadership of the nation into a supposed moral victory over Russia. FAFO.
As for causes of this war, the media manipulators want you to stay focused that History began in 2022 with "Russia's Unprovoked, Full-Scale invasion of Ukraine." For many years ahead of that, The West (CIA+MI6) was prodding the "Kyiv" regime, which they installed after the Maidan coup, to keep bombing and then shelling their own Ukrainian citizens in SE Ukraine, the Donbas area, and keep that up until Russia finally responds. As you can see, the Kyiv regime does target civilians, and goes as far as using their own people as bait to bring Russia into the theatre.
This same incrementalism is again being applied in the repeated EU-supplied drone incursions into Russia itself, hoping that Russia climbs this escalation ladder and attacks some rear-area military supply centre in a NATO nation, giving the West the final excuse for their dearly beloved war on Russia. They are so locked in to this fatal course of action that reversing the drive to war is becoming increasingly difficult, and it is now taking a toll on these "Peace Mongers."
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