Russian and American defense ministers want to keep in touch despite the conflict

The connection is not broken. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and American Defense Minister Lloyd Austin discussed the situation in Ukraine on Tuesday, June 25, during a telephone conversation, which took place at the initiative of Washington, the Russian Defense Ministry announced. Andrei Belousov “highlighted the risk of further escalation of the situation related to the supply of American weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces”, the ministry said in a press release. This is the first discussion between the two men since the appointment of the Russian minister on May 12.

Lloyd Austin “stressed the importance of maintaining lines of communication in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine”, declared the spokesperson for the American ministry, General Pat Ryder. Russia considers that Washington has become a party to the conflict in Ukraine by authorizing kyiv to use long-range missiles against Russian regions and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov threatened the United States with “consequences”and Russian diplomacy had summoned the American ambassador to Moscow, Lynne Tracy, to warn her that “such actions by Washington, (…) authorizing strikes inside Russian territory, would not go unpunished”. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, threatened to deliver equivalent weapons to enemies of the West so that they could attack their interests in other regions of the world.