Ukraine’s top security official declared last week that a third world war has already started and that the conflict will likely spread as it did during World War II.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said, “People that think the Third World War has not yet started make a big mistake,” as reported by Breitbart.
Danilov made the comment during a panel session involving former CIA chief Gen. David Petraeus at the Kyiv Security Forum held in the Ukrainian capital city.
“This is not just about relations between Ukraine and Russia, it’s also a big mistake. It’s a much more complicated geopolitical situation and some sober-minded people have said that this is not the last war in this century,” said Danilov, per Breitbart.
Comparing the current conditions in Ukraine to the buildup to World War II, Danilov rejected calls to negotiate with Putin because he claimed President Franklin D. Roosevelt would never have asked Winston Churchill to submit to Hitler after Germany’s bombing campaign of England.
“Unfortunately, the b-lls of some people in big-time politics now are soft-boiled eggs, they are scared stiff before Russia,” Danilov said disparagingly of those calling for peace negotiations, according to Breitbart.
Petraeus, who was the former commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq before he became CIA chief, also compared the conflict in Ukraine to World War II.
“I haven’t seen anything like it since World War II. The Russians are not particularly impressive in terms of knowledge or performance on the battlefield, but they have created a rather outstanding defense system, and it is quite difficult to punch [through it],” he said.
According to figures published by The New York Times, combined war deaths and injuries on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine have neared 500,000.
Still, the current conflict still pales in comparison to the total losses suffered in World War II. Nearly 15 million military personnel died worldwide, as did over 38 million civilians.
Projections for the destruction and deaths that could result from a third world war vary widely based on the potential type of conflict and the weapons employed.
Assuming that the principal antagonists in such a conflict were the United States and Russia, the countries with the two biggest nuclear arsenals in the world, a 2019 Princeton University simulation of a nuclear war projected that over 34 million people would die and nearly 60 million more would be injured in just the first few hours.
