Russian citizens across the country are stocking up on essential supplies like salt, matches and buckwheat in preparation for war, according to an expert who recently visited the region. Jill Dougherty, who served as CNN’s Foreign Affairs Correspondent for three decades, reveals how Russians are paranoid about a major imminent conflict in an article for the Wilson Center.
After explaining how a taxi driver in Moscow asked her, “When are we going to war?”, Dougherty relates how she traveled from “the Baltic region, to Georgia, and to Russia” and that “talk of war is everywhere”.
“At the office I ask a Russian employee about the mood in his working-class Moscow neighborhood,” she writes. “The old people are buying salt, matches and “gretchka,” (buckwheat) he tells me – the time-worn refuge for Russians stocking up on essentials in case of war.”
According to Dougherty, many prominent voices in Russia are incredibly concerned about NATO’s increasingly harsh rhetoric and military maneuvers.
She cites comments made by Sergei Karaganov, foreign affairs expert and member of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Foreign Policy and Defense Council, who told Der Spiegel that the western propaganda offensive against Russia is “reminiscent of the period preceding a new war.”
As Mac Slavo explains, all signs point to a major escalation.
“With Vladimir Putin having recently purged 50 of his top commanders following an old Soviet doctrine that calls for exactly such maneuvers ahead of war, there appear to be a variety of actions being undertaken by both East and West in anticipation of a large-scale conflict.”
“NATO is deploying more assets to the Eastern front and the Russians for, their part, are feverishly deploying new weapons systems, one of which is reportedly capable of obliterating an entire U.S. state the size of Texas, as well as a Tsunami torpedo that could wipe out entire coastal cities.”