By Athena Papakosta

Russia still maintains a high tone towards the West.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warns the Western camp to stop playing with fire, stressing: “We see Washington, London and Paris making statements about the need to do the right thing to ensure that Russia suffers strategic defeat’ but, at the same time, ‘German military are holding a meeting to discuss bombing our territories and the French president is talking about sending in Western troops’.

At the same time, Mr General Vladimir Zarudnitskyhead of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, warns that the conflict in Ukraine could escalate into a full-scale war in Europe while underlining that the possibility of Moscow’s forces being involved in a new conflict is increasing “significantly”.

“If the aggressor is not stopped, he will continue,” underlined yesterday, Thursday, the president of Moldova, Maya Sandu, during a joint press conference with her French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron.

Calling on Europe to present a common front, he added that “the attack must be repelled by a strong force”.

For his part, the French president – a week after the “appeal” of pro-Russian separatists in Transnistria who asked for Moscow’s “protection” – expressed France’s “unwavering support” for its “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Moldova.

At the same time, in the north of the Old Continent, in Scandinavia, the large-scale military exercises of the now expanded NATO remain in full swing.

“This exercise is a message to all NATO competitors, worldwide, to show our ability to work together,” says a military officer participating in the Nordic Response 24 led by Finland – which is participating for the first time as a Member State of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

However, the shockwave from the conversation of German officers intercepted by Moscow, according to which the German armed forces discussed a plan for strikes on Russian soil, is still causing tremors.

Although the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, states that he is confident “that the trust between Germany, its allies and friends is great and that what is happening will not affect it”, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, is going to Berlin for consultations with his German counterpart.

In Germany, the voices in favor of the delivery of long-range Taurus missiles to Kiev are increasing, and one of them is that of the German Foreign Minister, Analena Burbock, who chooses to differentiate herself again from the German Chancellor, who has categorically ruled out this scenario.

“Those of us who want peace, those who want to end this war of destruction and annihilation must do everything we can to provide Ukraine with the means it needs to defend itself,” he underlines.

For his part, the British Foreign Secretary, when asked about it, avoided giving a direct answer, stressing, nevertheless, that “as long as we are not in that situation where a NATO soldier kills a Russian soldier, we do not cause escalation (but) we allow Ukraine to defend herself.”

And the debate remains open, as do the unwritten red lines of Moscow, which now has nerves and does not hide it.