Original Russian text: "??? ??????? ?? ????????? ??????????? ????? ???????, ??? ?????? ????????? ? ?????. ??, ?????? ????????? ? ?????, ? ??? ???????????. ??, ?? ????????? ???????? ???? ??????, ???? ??????????????? ???????????, ???? ????????, ????? ?????. ?? ????????? ? ????? ?????. ?? ? ??? ???? ????????? ??????? ?? ??????????? ?????? ???????. ? ? ??????????????? ????? ??? ??????? ??????????? ????? ? ????? ?????, ??? ? ??????? ?????, ??? ? ?????????? ?????: ?????????? ????????? ????????? ? ?????, ? ??????????? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????"

Translation: "Recently at a meeting the United States stated that Russia is preparing for war. Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I can confirm it.  Yes, we are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people. We are preparing for such a war.  But there is a major difference between us and the United States.  Linguistically, this difference is just in one word, in both Russian and English: Russia is preparing for war while the United States is preparing a war" (emphasis added).

We are so used to western diplomats and politicians saying more or less anything and everything (as the joke goes: when do you know that a politician is lying? When his lips move) that many of us stopped paying attention to what is being said. If tomorrow Trump or some "Congressperson" goes on national TV and declares "read my lips – up is down, dry is wet and yes means no" – most of us will just ignore it. The truth is that being exposed to that constant stream of empty, bombastic and always dishonest statements makes most of us immune to verbal warnings, even when they come from non-western political figures.

It is, therefore, crucial to fully realize that Russian official and diplomats carefully measure every word they say and that when they repeat over and over again that Russia is ready for war, they actually and truly mean it!

Of course, there have been those in the West who fully saw this danger and have been warning about it for years, I especially think of Prof. Stephen Cohen and Paul Craig Roberts here.  And I have been warning about this for four years now, beginning with the article "Obama just made things much, much worse in the Ukraine – now Russia is ready for war" posted on March 1st, 2014, followed by many more articles with the same warning since (see "The Russian response to a double declaration of war" on September 27th, 2014; "Did Russia just "gently" threaten the USA?" on November 12th, 2015; "Debunking popular clichés about modern warfare" on May 19th, 2016; "How Russia is preparing for WWIII" on May 26, 2016; "A Russian warning" on June 1st 2016; "Assessing the Russian Military as an Instrument of Power" on August 25th, 2016; "Progress report on the US-Russian war" on December 1st, 2017; "What price will mankind have to pay for the collapse of the Empire?" on April 13th, 2018; "Each "click" brings us one step closer to the "bang!" on April 20th, 2018).  But for all our efforts, we have been "voices crying in the wilderness" which is hardly surprising since even Putin's blunt warning during his March 1st speech to the Russian Federal Assembly was quickly dismissed as "posturing" and quickly forgotten.  This is why two weeks following that historical speech I compared Russia to a peaceful rattlesnake (yes, they are peaceful creatures!) desperately trying to warn a drunk idiot to back-off but to no avail: the drunk idiot just boastfully declares "hold my beer and watch this" and tries to grab the snake.  I concluded by saying that: