Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday that “if the West allows Ukraine to use its long-range weapons against Russian territory, it will mean that NATO countries, the United States and their European allies are directly participating in the war in Ukraine.”
Asked by Russian state television at the end of a cultural forum in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin chief said: “It would be their direct involvement and this, of course, would mean a drastic change in the very essence, in the nature of the conflict.”
For Putin, “(…) it would mean that NATO, the United States and their allies are at war with Russia. And if that is the case, we will take the corresponding decisions, based on the threats that are created against us.”
Hours earlier, in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Kremlin is convinced that Washington and London “long ago” gave Kiev permission to use its long-range missiles to attack Russia and now they are only looking for the “most beautiful and elegant” way to make it public.
The head of local diplomacy spoke to ambassadors and diplomats from nearly 80 countries, offering a sort of briefing at the headquarters of the Diplomatic Academy with the vision of the Russian authorities on what is happening “in the war, he said, that the West unleashed against Russia”, including a five-minute video, with the “horrors that the Ukrainians commit against the civilian population” in Donbas (Donetsk and Lugansk) and Kursk.
“We have no doubt that the decision to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons to attack Russian territory was taken long ago,” Lavrov said, describing the visit to Kiev on Wednesday by US and British foreign policy chiefs Antony Blinken and David Lammy as a “staged show.” He added: “Now they are just looking for the, let’s say, prettiest, most elegant, least indecent way to make it public.”
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– 2024-09-14 04:05:17
