(St. Petersburg) Vladimir Putin threatened on Wednesday to deliver weapons to third countries likely to strike Western interests, if the West allows Ukraine to strike Russia with its long-range missiles.
The Russian president raised this threat while Western countries are increasingly favorable, under conditions, to authorizing Kyiv to use their weapons to strike Russian territory. Ukraine has been demanding this right for months.
“If someone considers it possible to supply such weapons in the combat zone to strike our territory […], why should we not have the right to supply our weapons of the same type to regions of the world where the sensitive installations of countries that act in this way against Russia? », Launched Mr. Putin, during an interview with around fifteen press agencies, including AFP, on the sidelines of the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum.
Some NATO countries, such as Italy, however, remain opposed to the use of their weapons on Russian territory, in particular high-precision long-range missiles, fearing an escalation of the conflict.
The Russian president also reaffirmed that Western military instructors “are already in Ukraine, and are suffering losses there.” Losses about which “the United States and European states prefer to remain silent,” according to him.
Last week, the Russian president claimed that Western instructors were in Ukraine, “under the guise of mercenaries.”
Other countries, including the United States, have ruled out sending instructors. No state has reported the presence of its military in Ukraine.
During the approximately three-hour discussion, for which he arrived several hours late than the announced time, Mr. Putin reiterated his arguments that Russia was willing to sit down at the negotiating table, and that the best way to stop the war was for the West to “stop supplying weapons” to Ukraine.
“Providing weapons to a conflict zone is always a bad thing. Especially when suppliers not only supply weapons, but control them. This is a very serious and very dangerous measure,” he said, refusing to see his February 2022 offensive as the central factor in the conflict.
The Russian president also refused to quantify the losses suffered by the Russian army after two and a half years of conflict, assuring that they were “much lower” than the Ukrainian losses.
“If we talk about irreparable losses, then the ratio is one to five” with the losses suffered on the Ukrainian side, he said.
He assured that this ratio was similar to the difference between the number of prisoners in each camp. According to him, Russia currently holds 6,465 Ukrainian soldiers, compared to 1,348 Russian soldiers imprisoned in Ukraine.
Often appearing smiling for this interview, held on the eve of the festivities marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, to which Russia was not invited, he also appeared irritated at times, as when he insisted that Russia had “no imperial ambitions” and was not planning to attack NATO.
“Don’t look for what doesn’t exist […] don’t look for our imperial ambitions. They don’t exist,” he said, in response to a question from AFP about the presence of the flags of contemporary Russia, imperial Russia and the USSR in front of the Gazprom headquarters where the meeting with journalists was taking place.
“We are making up that Russia wants to attack NATO […] Who invented this nonsense? Bullshit,” he fumed.
And if the Kremlin denies wanting to recreate its lost empire, Moscow has annexed five Ukrainian regions and a number of Russian officials, Mr. Putin included, point to the fact that these belonged to the Russian and Soviet empires.