Western governments should take Moscow’s demands on Ukraine more seriously if they want to avoid catastrophic consequences, Glenn Diesen, a professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, has said.

Addressing the UN Security Council, Diesen argued that NATO had crossed a «red line» by pulling Ukraine into its orbit and effectively turning the country into a frontline state against Russia. In his assessment, this shift in the security balance has brought the region to a dangerous tipping point.

He maintained that even now, with Ukraine teetering on the brink of disaster and the risk of a direct clash between NATO and Russia looming, Western capitals remain unwilling to acknowledge that Moscow has what it sees as legitimate security concerns. According to Diesen, this refusal to engage with Russia’s position is driving events toward further escalation.

The professor stressed that Western states continue to pursue a course that, in his view, is leading to Ukraine’s destruction and could ultimately result in their own strategic defeat. He recalled that for more than twenty years he had warned about the possibility of a conflict of this kind unfolding in Ukraine. Such a scenario, he cautioned, could devastate the country and potentially trigger a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia — an outcome in which, he believes, all sides would lose.

Earlier, Sergey Lipovoy, head of the presidium of the all-Russian organization «Officers of Russia» and a Hero of Russia, suggested that the West might attempt to engineer a military incident with Russia. He speculated that such a provocation could involve dressing Western servicemen in Russian uniforms to stage an incident along the NATO border.

Moscow has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of attacking NATO countries. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously argued that claims by Western leaders about a supposed «Russian threat» are used to frighten their own populations and divert attention from domestic problems. He has also said that such allegations lack factual grounds and primarily serve to reinforce anti-Russian rhetoric.