Vladimir Putin makes claims about Ukrainian counteroffensive
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the West of being “directly at war” with Moscow in a dangerous escalation as the war in Ukraine rages on.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Lavrov branded Ukraine’s peace formula unrealistic and blasted Kyiv’s Western allies.
“You can call this whatever you want to call this, but they are directly at war with us. We can call this a hybrid war, but that doesn’t change the reality,” Lavrov said. “They are effectively engaged in hostilities with us, using the Ukrainians as fodder,” he added.
Lavrov blamed the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal on what he described as broken promises by Ukraine and the United Nations.
In remarks after his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, Lavrov said Russia left the crucial deal because “everything that was promised to us turned out to be a deception”.
The bellicose rhetoric comes a day after President Joe Biden told Volodymyr Zelensky the US will hand Ukraine devastating long-range missiles dubbed the “wonder weapon” to aid the war with Russia in a monumental blow for Vladimir Putin.
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The US president made the announcement to his Ukrainian counterpart in the latest round of crunch talks between the two leaders, three US officials and a congressional official familiar with the discussions told NBC News. It remains unclear when the missiles will be delivered or when a public announcement is going to be made.
This would give their troops the ability to strike targets from as far away as about 180 miles, hitting supply lines, railways, and command and control locations behind the Russian front lines.
Russia was always going to dial up the rhetoric in response but the West has been advised to stand firm in the face of such threats.
Colonel Richard Kemp exclusively told Daily Express US that Vladimir Putin’s likely “bluster” on the weapons “won’t mean anything”.
Speaking to Daily Express US, the Afghanistan veteran said: “Russia will do what they’ve done for pretty much every major weapons decision, they’ll start threatening and blustering, and it won’t mean anything. It won’t change anything.
“When the UK decided to send tanks, that was a red line for the Russians and ‘we will pay for that’, and it doesn’t amount to anything, because the Russians can’t do anything about it.”
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He continued: “They’re not going to attack NATO, they won’t attempt to attack NATO supplies of ATACMS coming into Poland, because the last thing they want is a fight with NATO. That’s what they don’t want.
“There’ll be a lot of talking and blustering and threatening, but it won’t actually mean anything.”
It’s unclear what impact the missiles will actually have on Ukraine’s spluttering counteroffensive, which kicked off in early June.
Defense officials have conceded the US does not have a large stockpile of excess ATACMS as they are more expensive to provide to Ukraine than traditional artillery.
The commitment is a radical departure from the stance Biden has adopted since the beginning of the invasion, however.
During recent weeks, Joe Biden’s administration has significantly shifted its position on which it is going to send to Ukraine having previously been accused of being too slow when compared to other Western nations.
The White House initially withheld approval for requests for the likes of stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Howitzer artillery pieces, anti-ship missiles and HIMARS systems, before later giving them the green light.
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