Russian journalist claims US 'announced that it was going to war with Russia' on state TV

Last week, the United States Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland called for Crimea to be demilitarised and voiced Washington's support of strikes on the peninsula.A Russian journalist and propagandist has now responded by claiming on state TV that the US has announced war with Russia.

US believes Crimea must be 'demilitarised'

Nuland told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on Thursday 16 February:

No matter what the Ukrainians decide about Crimea in terms of where they choose to fight etcetera, Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is at a minimum, at a minimum, demilitarised.

She added:

Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them and we are supporting that.

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US 'actually announced that it was going to war with Russia'

On Saturday 18 February, TheKremlinYap, a Twitter account which tracks Kremlin propaganda, posted a video from Olga Vladimirovna Skabeyeva's 60 Minut program on Russia-1state TV with subtitles in English. In the clip, Russian journalist Igor Korotchenko responded to Nuland's comments by declaring:

After the U.S. crossed every imaginable and unimaginable red line, today the U.S. State Department actually announced that it was going to war with Russia.

I assume that this is how we should interpret Nuland's statement. There is no need for halftones. The U.S. is an enemy of Russia, a military adversary.

He continued:

If it expects massive missile strikes on Russian territory to be carried out with their help, but as if by someone else's hands, then perhaps we can regard this as a casus belli (cause for war) and react accordingly.

Korotchenko further warned:

Russian decision-making complexes should give adequate, conceptual, doctrinal, and military responses to this audacious statement of the United States, and appropriate measures should be taken. What kind of measures? We shall see.

Michael Clarke, professor in the War Studies department at King's College London, sought to minimise Korotchenko's comments, telling Newsweek they were 'just more bluster and repeats things being said on the channel at regular intervals'.

Read more:

- Newsweek: 'Russian State TV Says U.S. Has Declared War After Crimea Comments'

- Reuters: 'Russia accuses United States of inciting Ukraine to escalate the war'