War Between Russia and NATO

Panetta said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s measures against his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were not enough to stop him in Ukraine. "I would have taken some very tough positions with regards to Putin." The former CIA director also proposed strong military options about the crisis in Ukraine, saying imposing further “sanctions” against Russia and providing “military aid to the Ukrainians” would be needed to resolve the crisis. James George Jatras, former US Senate foreign policy analyst, said, “I think Mr. Panetta’s comments are very unfortunate.” “Yes, there’s an element of truth in that the measures taken by Washington and our European allies have been ineffective. But, I think, it miscasts what’s really going on in Ukraine, that somehow this is an equation of stopping Putin, which is really not the relevant question,” Jatras told Press TV on Wednesday. He added that the “relevant question is the instability and conflict in Ukraine in which unfortunately Washington and Europe had played an essential role.” “What is most dismaying about Mr. Panetta’s suggestion is the idea that we should be upping the ante by providing weapons and missile deployment and so forth which not only risks further escalation and even the possibility of a hot war in Ukraine between NATO and Russia,” he opined. Doing so “would be a complete disaster for Ukraine which would much increase the death toll from fighting and further make impossible any kind of stabilization or economic recovery of the country,” he added. The United States accuses Russia of arming and supporting pro-Russian forces fighting against the government in Kiev. The Kremlin, however, denies the allegations.