The Russian side has never implied a waiver of negotiations with Ukraine. Dialogue potential does exist between Moscow and Kiev, with neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov having ever talked about disavowing this possibility. A statement to this effect came from Press Secretary to the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov in an interview with RIA Novosti. " Neither the president nor the minister have ever said the door to negotiations is closed," the Kremlin spokesman stressed.
The mischief of it is that the Kiev regime does not simply want to negotiate with Moscow. This was once again stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, answering journalists' questions following his recent talks with the leaders of Iran and Turkiye. According to Putin, the outcome of any negotiations depends on the parties’ willingness to fulfill the agreements reached: "We can see today that the Kiev authorities have no interest in that." It was during the talks in Istanbul in late March this year that Moscow and Kiev actually reached an agreement, and it only remains to initial it. But following the withdrawal of Russian troops from the central regions of Ukraine, the Kiev authorities backed off on those agreements, the president pointed out.
And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is sure there is no point having a dialogue with Kiev today. "It doesn’t make any sense given the circumstances. Yesterday, the President touched on this while speaking at the news conference following talks with the leaders of Iran and Turkiye in Tehran. Vladimir Putin once again made it clear that the Ukrainian leadership asked for talks early on during the special military operation. We didn't say no. We approached this process honestly," Lavrov said in an interview with Russia Today media group and RT TV channel editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan. The Minister also reminded that the first rounds of negotiations with Ukraine, which took place in Belarus, "showed that the Ukrainian side didn’t really want to seriously discuss anything."
According to the chief Russian diplomat, Western countries are holding official Kiev “back from taking any constructive steps, and they are not just flooding it with weapons, but making it use those weapons in an increasingly risky manner. They want to make this an actual war and pit Russia against the European countries," the minister stressed. And this is primarily beneficial to the United States and Great Britain. Summing up, the minister expressed doubt that Kiev would be allowed to negotiate “until the Americans decide they have created enough destruction and chaos.”
Along with this, Sergey Lavrov said deliveries to Ukraine of long-range weapons from Western countries would move the special operation’s objectives “even further from the current line.” The minister must be implying a deeper entry into the Ukrainian territory by the Armed Forces of Russia and their allies from the DPR and LPR. The ultimate goals are still denazification and demilitarization, which means no threats to our security, no military threats from the territory of Ukraine, as previously formulated by President Vladimir Putin.
However, the threats are there for all to see. The West, primarily the United States, keeps pumping heavy weapons into Ukraine that are capable of posing a threat both to the Donbass republics and Russia’s border regions. Moscow cannot let this happen. Small wonder that responding to Ukraine’s statement about striking Crimea with American missiles, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered to further increase the actions of groups in all the operational areas in order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime to launch massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of the Donbas and other regions.
Despite all the warnings by Moscow, the West goes on with shipping a wide range of weapons to Ukraine, including heavy armament. And the one to show the greatest zeal is the United States. It allocated some $57 billion in military aid to Ukraine, with the Congress having obliged the White House to assimilate the funds, so the supply will keep on going. Experts say the regime still obtains portable Javelin and Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems, though perhaps to a lesser extent than before, as America is running out of them. So, Washington began stepping up supplies of HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems (MLRS) and howitzers to Kiev.
And the US authorities have revised the arms supply pattern to Ukraine – now President Joe Biden can provide $11 billion in military assistance to Kiev within one fiscal year without consent of the Congress, which is, by the way, 110 times more than the previous limit. An unidentified senior US Defense Department representative said the Biden administration intended to send another four HIMARSs with extra ammunition, 1 000 rounds of 155-mm artillery ammunition, explosive ammunition, three tactical vehicles and other equipment to Ukraine. In total, the package will amount to $400 million.
People in the United States itself are wondering why Washington’s arms supplies are so swift and secret? They are getting increasingly annoyed over the country’s engagement in the Ukrainian conflict, so the White House and Congress have shifted to a more underhand approach in assisting Kiev in all the possible ways.
Meanwhile, LPR Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Russia Rodion Miroshnik said the theft of Western weapons supplied to Ukraine and their subsequent sale is controlled by the shadow headquarters in the presidential office and friends of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. American Switchblade-300 kamikaze drones, M4 carbines, NLAW anti-tank complexes, Javelin ATMSs and Stinger MANPADS can be already found in the Darknet. Representative Victoria Spartz even appealed to President Biden demanding working out a relevant supervisory mechanism.
Earlier, Russia’s first deputy UN envoy Dmitry Polyansky called the Western arms supply to Ukraine a global threat, because they regularly emerge in different parts of the world. Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, has also touched upon the issue.
He particularly noted that American weapons supplied to Ukraine are spreading and will keep doing so to end up in the hands of criminals across the globe. Professional gun thieves in the United States and Ukraine will fill their pockets properly, the deputy Security Council head wrote on Telegram. Terrorists and radicals will have more lethal types of military equipment, and all of this covered up by the US administration and special services, he argued. In this regard, Medvedev accused Washington of yet again becoming a sponsor of international terrorism.
