(Moscow) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused NATO of being a party to the conflict in Ukraine by supplying arms to forces in Kyiv, as the Moscow offensive entered its second year.
“They are sending tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine. This is really participation,” Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 channel broadcast on Sunday.
“This means that they take part, albeit indirectly, in the crimes of the Kyiv regime,” said the Russian president.
The Western countries, he further asserted, have “one goal only: to destroy the former Soviet Union and its main part, the Russian Federation”.
“Only then will they perhaps accept us into the so-called family of civilized peoples, but only separately, each part separately,” he added during these statements made. on the sidelines of a patriotic concert Thursday, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
PHOTO MIKHAIL METZEL, SPUTNIK VIA REUTERS
Vladimir Putin speaking on the sidelines of a patriotic concert last Thursday
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again promised on Sunday that his country will recover Crimea, a peninsula annexed in March 2014 by Moscow. A declared desire that has raised fears of an escalation of the conflict.
“Nine years ago, Russian aggression began in Crimea. By recovering Crimea, we will restore peace. This is our land and our people, our history,” Zelensky tweeted.
The US State Department, for its part, hailed in a press release the “efforts of Ukraine […] to bring global attention to the ongoing Russian occupation”.
“The United States does not and will never recognize the so-called Russian annexation of the peninsula,” he added.
In an interview published Sunday in the newspapers of the German regional press group Funke, the number two in Ukrainian military intelligence Vadym Skibitsky said that Kyiv was preparing a new counter-offensive for the spring.
“One of our military strategic objectives is to try to drive a wedge into the Russian front in the south” of the country, towards Crimea, he said.
“We won’t stop until we get our country back to its 1991 borders. This is our message to Russia and the international community,” Skibitsky added.
He also considered possible Ukrainian bombardments against military sites in Russia, in particular in the border region of Belgorod, already targeted on several occasions.
Ukraine has been insisting for months that the West should supply it with long-range missiles and fighter jets.
Russian plane destroyed in Belarus
The Belarusian opposition in exile claimed on Sunday that a Russian plane was destroyed at an airfield near Minsk in what it called “the most successful sabotage operation” since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.
” Supporters […] confirmed the success of a special operation aimed at blowing up a rare Russian aircraft at Matchulishchy airfield near Minsk,” Franak Viacorka, one of the top advisers to the figurehead of NATO, said on Twitter. Belarusian opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovkaïa.
According to Viacorka, “two Belarusians carried out the operation” using drones. “They have already left the country and are safe,” he added.
He did not specify which Russian aircraft had been targeted, but said the cost of the aircraft was 330 million euros. According to media close to the opposition, it is an A-50 surveillance and command aircraft.
“I am proud of all Belarusians who continue to resist the hybrid Russian occupation of Belarus and to fight for the freedom of Ukraine,” Ms.me Tikhanovskaya.
These assertions were unverifiable from independent sources and the Russian army did not react immediately.
Belarus, Moscow’s only European ally against Kyiv, is not directly involved in the Russian offensive in Ukraine, but lent its territory for the initial assault a year ago.
Moscow is also using Belarusian airfields to strike Ukraine, according to Kyiv.
Russia and Belarus have stepped up military exercises in recent months, with Ukraine saying it fears Minsk will enter the conflict.