- This is the 60 Minutes: Hot on the Trail. We're going on.
There are 9,000 NATO soldiers only a 2-hour's ride away from St. Petersburg. A large-scale drill with the romantic name of "Spring Storm" has begun in Estonia. The maneuvers close to us are being performed just 12 miles from the Russian border. It would seem that it's not a big deal.
- Where else would NATO conduct its drills? Meanwhile, Poland asks NATO to deploy more American servicemen there on a permanent basis. In the American press, Mikhail Gorbachev unexpectedly started to talk about nuclear weapons. But Norway outperformed everyone. As NATO's "eyes and ears", it knows how our attack will look like and that it has nothing to defend itself with. That's what they say. Let's watch the report.
F-16 fighters of the Norwegian Air Force are on alert 24/7. Every time radars detect a Russian aircraft, those pilots take to the sky to intercept them.
- Lately, we've seen aggressive behavior by Russia. It simulates attacks on us during our drills.
- Simulate attacks?
- Yes.
- How do you know it's a simulation?
- We know what an attack looks like.
- So, they go to the point of where they can launch an attack?
- Exactly.
Norway's F-16s are already over 40 years old. They don't have any stealth technology. Until they're replaced it with the F-35, Norway won't have anything to oppose Russia with. Norway will never have armed forces that can withstand a conflict with its large and powerful neighbor. The pilots of those F-16s call themselves "the guards of the north". They won't be able to stop the Russians. But they'll be first to detect them.”
- Alexander, what is this? It's the most popular and respected publicist of analytical news broadcast in the USA. What attacks on the Norwegians do we simulate? Why do we need to attack the Norwegians? We probably practice doing something with respect to the NATO countries. But Norwegians?
Alexander Zotin, expert of Carnegie Moscow Center: In terms of logic, Norway is a large exporter of hydrocarbons, by the way. Of course, it's absurd. That's clear.
- They escalate it.
- Yes, they escalate it. It's their mistake. They're spending their taxpayers' money. They may do it. It shouldn't bother Russia at all.
- The Wall Street Journal has just published an article where the president of the USSR suggests that the U.S. disarms as well. Let's watch the report.
"I'm convinced that nuclear determent, instead of defending peace, puts it at permanent risk. Nuclear weapons are like a rifle hanging on the wall in a play wrote and staged by an unknown man. We don't know the playwright’s intentions. We lost the chance to continue the progress in the control over nuclear weapons. The military-industrial complex won over common sense. Much later, in the late 80s, we managed to stop the arms race. Today, Russia and the U.S. are now at a dangerous crossroads. They should pause and think. Cold War veterans spoke out. Now, it's time for our countries' leaders to act".
- Vasily Alexandrovich. We can't meet with Trump for two years. We don't understand what's going on with the INF Treaty, and look at what he suggests.
Vasily Volga, former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada: No, the logic of that statement deserves only respect. We should stop escalating the situation. We should stop, yes, it's an innovative idea. I'd like to draw your attention to that map of yours. After all, there are a lot of shouts that this is Russia, that the Russians principally want to fight with the entire world and have nothing else to busy themselves with, that they want to conquer the world. Look at the map. If you look at the countries around Russia, take the Baltic countries, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia. You see that there's a confrontation belt. It's a belt of confrontation which has been created over a long time and very efficiently. German's reaction, France's reaction, are reactions by the most sensible politicians saying: that's enough. Look what's going on. The Americans will drag us into it. They'll drag us into it by arming those countries and carrying out those acts of aggression. I'm former military. I was an officer of strategic troops. And such drills are an act of aggression. And it isn't aggression by Russia. In addition to it, when we say... Relax, we are indeed the most powerful country, we have a big army on the continent, we can do whatever we want, and there are 15,000 or 30,000 servicemen. NATO, that is, the U.S., has modern equipment. Space-borne devices for aiming, control, attack, and coordination of efforts can make a small army of 30,000 or 50,000 a very serious threat. Therefore, what's going on there isn't just empty talk. I agree that they need to justify the doubling of their budget. All of the NATO countries are doubling their budgets starting this year. If Germany paid 74 billion euros, it'll pay 140 billion euros. That's twice as large as Russia's defense budget.
- More than twice.
- What's going on there isn't a justification of the United State's military-industrial complex, which only escalates the arms race and makes money on it. They destroyed the military-industrial complex only for Trump to go for an arms race. It's a unilateral race, by the way. But it's also real practice of a real act of aggression, of a real attack, together with all of the NATO forces. It isn't just a local phenomenon.
To sum it up, dear friends, I'd like to say that you don't need to have illusions that peace, when nations that have been fighting for millennia suddenly stop fighting, is possible. Peace is possible only when we're united, when we're strong, and when our tanks are in certain places and are prepared to be used when necessary. I'd like to say that we shouldn't be ashamed of it, but rather, proud. And we should strengthen our defense capabilities as much as possible.
