Ukraine must have relied on assistance from the West if it did in fact target a helicopter carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has told RT.
Russian air defense division commander Yury Dashkin told the Russia 1 channel last week that Putin’s helicopter had been caught in the “epicenter” of a massive Ukrainian drone attack during a visit to Kursk Region on May 20. The intensity of aerial incursions “increased significantly” when the president was in the air, with 46 incoming fixed-wing UAVs being shot down in the area, he said.
In an interview with RT on Wednesday, Ritter stressed that “if the Ukrainians drones actually targeted the Russian president, they did not do so in a vacuum... there would have been assistance provided by the West, which means that the West is targeting the Russian president.”
“If you read the Russian nuclear doctrine, this is a trigger for Russian nuclear retaliation or preemptive strikes. So, who is playing with fire here? It is not Vladimir Putin who is playing with fire. It is Ukraine and the West that are playing with fire,”he added.
The former US Marine Corps major was referring to a comment by US President Donald Trump, who claimed earlier this week that Putin was “playing with fire.”
The statement by Trump followed large-scale Russian strikes against Ukrainian military infrastructure, which Moscow said were retaliation for the intensification of drone attacks by Kiev on civilian targets inside Russia. According to the Defense Ministry in Moscow, more than 2,300 Ukrainian UAVs have been intercepted over the past week above Russian territory, mostly away from the front line.
Ritter expressed concern that there is a split in the US administration between opponents of Russia and those who are in favor of improving ties with Moscow. But at the same time, representatives of both camps and Trump himself are no experts on Russia, he added.
The US president “is a victim of basically the last words whispered into his ear before he goes to bed at night or the first words whispered into his ear when he wakes up in the morning… Trump is not well briefed [on Russia]. Look, this is a very dangerous situation,” Ritter warned.
Russia is offering June 2nd for new peace talks in Istanbul as Russia Today (RT), a Kremlin-sponsored news service, says Russia could strike Berlin in months after Germany gave Kyiv new long-range German cruise missile capability.
Russia Today (RT) Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan on Russia’s potential response to Taurus missile strikes, “In Moscow’s offices, it’s being discussed that if German forces strike Moscow with German weapons — and authorizing Taurus use means exactly that, since the Ukrainian army cannot service or program them — then we’ll have no choice left but to strike Berlin.”
Russia's delegation, led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, is ready to present Ukraine with Moscow's memorandum on overcoming the root causes of the crisis on June 2 in Istanbul, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a statement, reported Russian state news agency TASS.
"As we agreed, the Russian side promptly developed a relevant memorandum, outlining our position on all aspects of reliably overcoming the root causes of the crisis. Our delegation, headed by Vladimir Medinsky, is ready to present this memorandum to the Ukrainian delegation and provide the necessary explanations during the second round of direct talks in Istanbul next Monday, on June 2," Lavrov pointed out.
US President Donald Trump is ready to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky, he told reporters, "I will, if it’s necessary," Trump said when asked to comment on the possibility of him participating in the meeting
"At this point we are working with President Putin and we’ll see where we are. I think we are doing fine, but we’ll see."
"I cannot tell if Putin wants to end the war. Putin is playing with fire."
Lavrov informed U.S. Secretary of State Rubio about preparations for a new round of negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv in a phone call today.
Rubio emphasized the US's readiness to facilitate a rapprochement between the positions of Russia and Ukraine in order to resolve the conflict.
The Kremlin declared -- Merz's statement about long-range weapons is nothing more than a further provocation of war. Germany and France are competing for primacy in further provoking war in Ukraine, which is hindering peace efforts.
Germany agreed to provide €5 billion in fresh military aid to Ukraine, as Zelenskiy left Berlin to face Russian threats in the East of his country as Moscow continues to take territory.
No comments:
Post a Comment