In an extraordinary interview with the Wall Street Journal given Monday and published Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry made clear that the Obama administration and the US military/intelligence establishment are fully aware that they are risking the outbreak of nuclear war by pursuing a reckless and provocative policy towards Russia.

Summarizing the interview, Journal columnist Gerald F. Seib wrote: “His greatest fear now? ‘I think it could deteriorate into hot confrontation,’ even without Russian troops crossing into Ukraine, Mr. Kerry said. ‘And there are provocateurs who are perfectly capable, who are trying to instigate that kind of flare-up.’

“The fact that it hasn’t happened so far, he said, is a tribute to the discipline and restraint of the fledgling Ukrainian government. ‘But obviously,’ he added, ‘you could have a flash point here.’”

Kerry’s talk of the “discipline and restraint” of the US puppet regime in Kiev is a fraud. But he knows very well about the danger of provocateurs, since he is working intimately with them in stoking up the conflict with Russia.

One of these is billionaire oligarch, former prime minister and current presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, who was overhead earlier this year calling for the nuclear annihilation of Russia and extermination of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Tymoshenko heads the Fatherland Party of the US-installed interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

That Kerry and the Obama administration intend, despite the threat of a nuclear world war, to intensify the confrontation was made clear in another part of the interview. Seib wrote: “Asked why the administration continues to punish individual Russians or single Russian companies rather than impose broader penalties on whole sectors of the Russian economy—the energy, financial or defense sectors, for instance—Mr. Kerry replied: ‘We’re inches away from that now. And if they continue on this path, that’s where it’s heading.’”