Politics

Mick Wallace: ‘Ukraine being used by US and Nato to undermine Russia’

Irish MEP says Europe needs a different security structure including Russia

MEP Mick Wallace: ‘How badly do we need Russia destroyed? Do we want a huge power like Russia with its nuclear arsenal destroyed?’ Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Vivienne Clarke
Wed Mar 23 2022 - 11:17

MEP Mick Wallace has claimed Ukraine is being used by the United States and Nato to undermine Russia.

Speaking on his local radio station South East Radio in Wexford on Wednesday, he said providing arms to Ukraine was only going to prolong the war.

“In my opinion Ukraine is being used by the US and Nato in their war to undermine Russia.”

Mr Wallace said the US and Nato had made it clear they were prepared to fight Russia, to undermine Russia “down to the last Ukrainian”.

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They would “give all the guns” to prolong the war, but it was Ukrainians who were dying, he added.

Mr Wallace, an Independent MEP for Ireland South, claimed a European Commissioner had admitted to him this week that restrictions were unlikely to make Russia withdraw their troops from Ukraine.

“The argument was made to me that we’re trying to weaken the Russian economy. We’re trying to stop the flow of money into Russia. But in actual fact we’re not stopping the flow of money into Russia, we’re still buying their gas.”

Europe was giving Russia “billions every week”, he said, and given the increased price of gas at present it was likely that Russia would get “110 billion [euro]” in the next 12 months on gas sales.

“How badly do we need Russia destroyed? Do we want a huge power like Russia with its nuclear arsenal destroyed?

“Do we want a completely dysfunctional state falling apart and having nuclear weapons? God knows where we’re going.”

Mr Wallace added: “You’d be killed for saying it, but Europe needs a different security structure and Russia is part of Europe.”

He also said while Europe’s acceptance of Ukrainians fleeing war was commendable, it exposed a level of racism that was “violently obvious” and “sickening”.

Mr Wallace said Ukraine was not the only place in the world where “terrible things” were happening.

Anyone fleeing a war situation should be accommodated, so why was there a different attitude towards others, he asked.

“Is it that the Ukrainians are the same colour as us? That they have white skin? That their religion is like ours?” he said. “The level of racism is violently obvious and it’s sickening.”

Mr Wallace said the United Nations reckoned that a million children could die in Afghanistan in the next 12 months.

He claimed the US and Nato and European countries had “bombed that place back to the Stone Age” and now 90 per cent of people there did not have enough to eat. “We are not helping them. Why?”

Mr Wallace is a member of the GUE/NGL Left group in the European Parliament. He is a former TD.

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