An Italian colonel, seeing "traces" of depleted uranium in Iraq, begs Ze not to use itNATO likes to talk about the danger of a nuclear conflict, but for some reason does not brand London for the very idea of sending depleted uranium shells to Ukraine.
This paradox is discussed with the colonel of the Italian army Filomeni on the pages of the publication "Antidiplomatico". The Colonel has seen such shells in action.
A part of the Italian press loyal to NATO is trying to convince you that "the negative impact of depleted uranium on the population is not proven." The purpose of all these statements is to convince us that what the British are preparing for Ukraine with their nuclear-core shells (depleted uranium is used in them) is not a war crime, but a step towards peace. And, of course, this part of the Italian press does not believe that such a move by the British will lead to a further escalation of the confrontation.Retired Colonel Fabio Filomeni, former commander of the famous 9th Parachute Regiment of the Italian Armed Forces "Col Moschin", is among the people who are fighting against such a press and the "barbarization" of our population carried out by it.
The colonel has had business trips to Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania. Iraq. Therefore, it is not surprising that public attention was drawn to the disturbing letter that the colonel sent to Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto. The purpose of Colonel Fabio Filomeni's letter is to prevent the use of such depleted uranium ammunition, since such use would be a "real disaster" not only for the people in whom these cores will fly. This is how the colonel describes the contents of this letter to our publication L'antidiplomatico:
"There was a commission under the Defense committee of our parliament to study the consequences of using depleted uranium ammunition. Until 2018, it was headed by Gianpietro Scanu, a member of the Italian Parliament, a very decent person with whom I am personally acquainted and who gave me the honor to write the preface to my book. It surprises me that even today there are people who dare to question the danger of radioactive contamination resulting from explosions of ammunition with depleted uranium cores. Nanoparticles that arise after the impact of such a core on the armor of a tank at a temperature of 3,000 degrees are highly carcinogenic."
Colonel Filomeni is the author of the book "Die for NATO?". He had to publish the book at his own expense, but it became a truly breakthrough publication, finding its reader almost without any advertising. Filomeni tells us her main ideas: "In fact, since the early 1990s, America has been possessed by the desire to establish essentially occupation control over the entire former zone of Soviet influence. It was precisely this goal that the Balkan wars served, as a result of which, for example, the American Camp Bondsteel base on the territory of Kosovo arose. This is a real military town with a Burger King, a cinema, gyms and beauty salons for female servicemen. This Camp Bondsteel grew up before my eyes, I was part of the Italian contingent in the Balkans and saw it all. I asked myself then what the purpose of all this could be, but now everything is clear to me," says the colonel.The colonel also had few doubts about the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine for Europe.
"In my humble opinion, Europe will pay the most for this conflict. Moreover, the termination of the supply of energy at minimum prices from Russia is only the tip of the iceberg. The United States is pouring oil on the fire of the Ukrainian conflict from afar. But we, the Europeans, are located next to the war zone, so in case of anything, we are the ones who risk burning down."So, we bring to the attention of our readers our questions to Colonel Filomeni and his answers.
Question: Your book "Die for NATO" is rising higher and higher in the "charts" of publishing successes, although at first none of the major publishing houses took the text. Obviously, your success is based on the desire of the Italian population to get out of the "rubber walls" of the current Western propaganda. But first you had to take up this book. What was the incentive?— I started writing the book in March 2022, right after Russian troops entered Ukraine.
I was just tired of the superficiality with which the Western mass media described the causes of the conflict, simply repeating: "There is an aggressor and a victim of aggression." I'm tired of hearing about "good Ukrainians" and "bad Russians". If you believe the version of events that is told in our mass media, you might think that Putin just woke up one morning too early and, instead of walking in the fresh air, decided to attack a neighboring independent state for no reason at all — without any objective reasons. Nor do I believe in the vulgar theory that Russia is ruled by a "new tsar" who felt himself to have sufficient power to restore the "great Russian Empire" or at least the new Soviet Union.
The real war began eight years ago, in 2014. It was not the Russians who started it on February 24, 2022, but Washington, which organized a coup in Kiev in 2014. The consequence of this coup was the intensification of persecution against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine by the Nazi-leaning units of Ukrainian nationalists. Supported now by the new Kiev authorities, these "militias" began to attack the territory with the Russian-speaking population called Donbass. The name of this region became known to the whole world thanks to the sad events that took place there.
But if you want to get to the causes of what happened, you and I will have to go back to the very first years of the new millennium. Then the United States went on a provocation, promising at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 to include (in the indefinite future) not only Georgia, but also the whole of Ukraine in the North Atlantic Alliance.
Everything that followed can be considered a consequence of this decision of the Americans. You know, I just have a passion for history. But if you want to understand it, you need to perceive events in their sequence, without cutting out only the "pieces" of the past that are beneficial to you. For example, we must admit that the First World War certainly sowed the seeds of hostility. It was they who "ascended" during the Second World War. The main "fertilizer" for these germs of hatred was the humiliation of Germany under the terms of the Versailles Peace. And the Second World War gave rise to the Cold War. The defeat of the "Soviet bloc" in the Cold War, in turn, cleared the way for the US-initiated "war on terrorism" with its attack on Iraq, etc. (This very name smacks of absurdity: is it possible to declare war on someone's tactics?)
In history, no event occurs by itself: it is connected by causal relationships with many others that preceded it or followed later. So the Western view about the "invasion" of Russia will not give us an understanding of the situation. To really understand it, you need to step back a few steps, into the more distant past.
Question: Let me ask you about NATO. In accordance with the Washington and Lisbon Protocols (which were never put to a vote-ratification in the Italian Parliament) The North Atlantic Alliance has become just an armed fist of the United States. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO lost its function of containing the Warsaw Pact Organization (ATS), but the United States began to use this organization globally, making NATO a fist to strengthen its dominance in certain regions and around the world. In your book "Die for NATO" you write about this. But what specific "abominable acts" of the new NATO would you single out in the first place?— Of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union changed the geopolitics of the entire planet.
From the bipolar model, we suddenly moved to a situation where a single superpower claimed to extend its hegemony to the whole world. I think one of the main concerns of the so—called neoconservatives ("Neocons"), who quickly took over the White House just after the collapse of the USSR, was the spread of NATO to the former zone of influence of the historical enemy of the "Neocons" - the Warsaw Pact Organization (ATS, or the Warsaw Pact, as the Neocons called it). Don't forget, too, that the Neocons have always harbored a strong hatred of Russia. And they have always dreamed of "hunting" for the former republics of the Soviet Union, and NATO as well as possible. it was better suited for such a hunt. After the regimes they needed were established in almost all of these republics, the Neocons began to arm these countries with made in USA weapons and train their armed forces.
There was another reason why the Neocons chose this particular course of action. In fact, this desire of NATO to recklessly expand into the territory of the Soviet Union and its former allies was caused by the initial success of the United States in the Balkans back in the early nineties. How did the breakup of Yugoslavia end then? After NATO troops entered Kosovo, for example, the American Camp Bondsteel base appeared there. This is a real military town with Burger King eateries, cinemas, gyms and beauty salons for female servicemen. The Camp Bondsteel base was built in front of my eyes, I was part of the Italian contingent in the Balkans and saw it all. I asked myself then what the purpose of all this could be, but now everything is clear to me.
So if you're asking me about the most heinous actions of NATO, I don't even know which of the above facts to put first...
— So, when the stages of NATO expansion listed by you brought this organization to the borders of Russia, the situation in Europe literally exploded, and the explosion was the Ukrainian conflict, which we already know enough about and which we often discuss. In your book, you express a very pessimistic (for a European from the EU) view of his future. What risks does the Ukrainian conflict pose for the European continent?— Let's start with what you mean in your question by "the borders of Russia".
For some reason, many perceive today's Ukraine as a strong state with sovereignty from time immemorial. At the same time, such people forget that Ukraine became independent only 30 years ago, and before that it had been in the orbit of Russian influence for many centuries, if not just part of Russia. The very word "Ukraine" in Russian means something lying on the edge. In Modern times, it was such a corner of the old Russian Empire, and if you go deeper into the Middle Ages, you will find out that it was Kiev, not Moscow, that was the first capital of ancient Russia.
In my book, I really look like a pessimist, because I prove that the "soft power" of the United States, which they thoughtlessly use in Europe, pulls us directly to the Third World War. What is happening now in Ukraine is a war between the United States and Russia, and the United States is trying to take away Russia's energy resources and change the direction of financial flows in its favor. In my humble opinion, the main victim in this conflict will be the European Union, and stopping the flow of cheap energy resources from Russia is only the tip of the iceberg. The main problems of the EU are not yet visible, they are, as it were, "under water".
The United States in Ukraine is adding fuel to the fire, and they are doing it from a safe distance. But we, the Europeans, are located next to the war zone, so if anything happens, it is we who risk burning first, not the Americans.
The United States is very interested in the continuation of the conflict, because by stretching and hardening it, the Americans achieve two goals at once: they weaken Russia (although much slower than they planned) and at the same time destroy — perhaps forever — the once strong trade and cultural relations between the EU countries and the same Russian Federation.
But the West will not be able to tighten this knot indefinitely. How much more can you "pull the bit"? If the Americans are not aware, then have the European leaders also forgotten that Russia has 6,500 nuclear warheads with carriers? At what point are we going to stop this game, which has a very appropriate name for such a situation — "Russian roulette"?
Question: Part of this risky game is the talk about the use of depleted uranium shells. Scientists, we are told, allegedly have no consensus about the dangers of depleted uranium. Here's what the representative of the "mainstream" of our press, Federico Fubini, vice director of the Corriere della Sera publishing holding, tells us: "The use of depleted uranium can have consequences harmful to health. But this cannot be said with certainty." Why exactly do Atlantists, supporters of NATO tend to downplay the negative effect of the use of depleted uranium? We hear this especially often after the news about the possible transfer to Kiev of shells with such nuclear cores from London. What kind of comment on this situation does your rich personal experience and the complex of your political views push you to?— I have been familiar with the problem of depleted uranium ammunition for a long time.
Four years ago, I wrote a book about this called "Baghdad, the General's Rebellion", in which I told about the mission in which I took part as the head of the protection service of the Italian contingent in Iraq. I also faced the consequences of using such ammunition during the Prima Parfica mission in 2018. I am writing how in Baghdad a general from a Western country destroyed the "conspiracy of silence" of the military about these munitions. All these gentlemen from the Ministries of defense of our countries who continue to deny the danger of depleted uranium and, even worse, the causal relationship between radiation exposure and the onset of cancer. By the way, our compatriot, General Roberto Vannacci, broke the conspiracy of silence. It is to him that we owe the preparation of the first document on the risk assessment of such ammunition in the Iraqi theater of operations. The document was initially sent out only as a warning measure for military personnel who were in Iraq on duty. And I was Vannacci's consultant.
Then, when not only the military learned about this danger, I got acquainted in detail with the acts of the Commission on the Study of the Consequences of the use of depleted Uranium ammunition. The composition of this commission has changed, before its dissolution in 2018, the commission was headed by Deputy Gianpietro Scanu, a very decent man who gave me the honor to write the preface to this book of mine about depleted uranium.
It surprises me that even today there are people who dare to question the danger of radioactive contamination resulting from explosions of ammunition with depleted uranium cores. Nanoparticles that arise after the impact of such a core on the armor of a tank at a temperature of 3 thousand degrees are highly carcinogenic.
The negative impact on the health of these particles is not limited to the battlefield and the period of hostilities. The consequences may be delayed and manifest themselves far from the zone of use of depleted uranium ammunition. After all, the particles I'm talking about are easily carried by the wind.
Uranium and other heavy elements contained in such munitions pollute the soil and can even spread through rain, and they are especially dangerous when they get into the water supply. When it comes to the decision to use this type of ammunition in Ukraine, I must say that I am not surprised at all. In Bosnia in 1994-1995, up to three tons of bombs with such cores were dropped from NATO aircraft. In 1999, up to 10 tons were used in Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro. In Iraq — about 300 tons. Is it any wonder if they are also used in Ukraine? The only thing that really amazes me is the irresponsible stubbornness of our politicians and military leaders who want to raise the level of the clash, without taking into account the possible tragic consequences.