All Western military equipment that is currently being delivered to Ukraine, will be ground down, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Channel One on Thursday.
"Everything that is being put on board of another vessel now will be ground down. All those Leopard (tanks)... will be plunged by our fire in Ukraine," he said.
Deputy Minister also criticized the West’s policy regarding arms supplies to Kiev, blasting it as "an absurd decision."
Banalizing the issue of using nuclear weapons has become another "sad aspect" of the current developments, he said, adding though that Moscow remains committed to the principle of unacceptability of nuclear war.
Seven Explosions Heard Over Russia's Belgorod, Air Defense Systems Presumably Activated
Air defense systems were presumably activated in the Russian city of Belgorod that borders Ukraine's Kharkov region on Thursday night as seven explosions sounded in the center of city, a Sputnik correspondent reported.
The explosions occurred at around 11:52 p.m. Moscow time (20:52 GMT) in the center of Belgorod and lasted for about 10 minutes with intervals.
Loud expositions made windows in residential buildings shake and car alarms go off.
Nuland outlines US goals in Ukraine
Unless the Crimean peninsula is at the very least “demilitarized” Ukraine won’t feel safe, while the ideal end to the current conflict is with a revolution in Moscow, the US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Thursday.
Ukrainians “have to get to a map that is more sustainable for them,” Nuland said in a video interview with the Washington think tank Carnegie Endowment. They have “significant chunks of territory they need to be a viable state, before you even get to the question of Crimea, and that’s what they’re focused on now.”
The US position is that Ukraine is “owed and due all of their territory within their international borders,” which means Crimea as well, Nuland added.
Assigned to Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1954, Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014, after the violent coup in Kiev that Nuland helped “midwife,” according to the infamous phone call intercept.
“Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is – at a minimum, at a minimum – demilitarized,” Nuland insisted on Thursday, claiming that Moscow had turned the peninsula into a military base, with command posts, logistics depots and airfields for “Iranian drones.”
“Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them, and we are supporting that,” she said.
Earlier this week, Politico quoted two anonymous officials to imply that Nuland’s boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, had admitted the US was not “actively encouraging” Ukraine to seize Crimea and that any moves on the peninsula would be “Kiev’s decision alone.”
Nuland, however, told Carnegie that the battlefield objectives of Washington and Kiev overlap “in terms of what the Ukrainians want to do on the battlefield, and what we’re enabling them to plan to do.”
Asked how she saw the conflict ending, Nuland said the West “must never trust, as long as Vladimir Putin is in power, or somebody like him, that this is truly over.” Even if the fighting ends on Ukraine’s terms, there “has to be a long-term plan” to build up Ukraine’s military as a deterrent. She also expressed a preference for Russians overthrowing their government for a “better future” offered by the West.
The US has committed more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine just over the past year, but Washington officially insists it is not a party to the conflict.
Russia demands UN probe Nord Stream blasts
Lawmakers in the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, unanimously voted on Thursday to adopt an appeal to the UN demanding a probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September. MPs described the incident as a “crime committed by the US.”
The move comes after a bombshell exposé was published by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh last week revealing how Washington and its NATO ally Norway cooperated to develop a plan to destroy the pipelines.
Russia’s appeal was prepared on behalf of State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, who, during Thursday’s parliament meeting, called the blasts a terrorist attack.
“Just think about it: a terrorist act aimed against Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. The USA, shamelessly, brought it into motion, with President Biden publicly endorsing it,” Volodin said. He also noted how the countries involved in the incident were “working on instructions from both the CIA and the US.”
The appeal was initially introduced to the State Duma by the Parliament Committee for International Relations on Tuesday. The document states that “the Biden administration, which issued the unlawful order, bears full responsibility for causing multibillion-dollar damage to the owners of the most important energy infrastructure for the Eurasian Continent.”
The document insists that Washington must answer for the “long-term detrimental effect of this attack on the economic development of the countries of the region” and the “catastrophic damage to the environment.” According to the lawmakers, Washington’s “cynical desire” for geopolitical hegemony and the “physical elimination of natural competitors” puts US leaders “on par with ruthless terrorist and war criminals."
On September 26, a series of explosions heavily damaged both Nord Stream pipelines, which were built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany and other EU nations.
The blasts happened near the Danish island of Bornholm, in an area where the US Navy and its NATO allies conducted BALTOPS 22 drills several months prior. According to Hersh, American divers planted the explosives under the cover of the naval exercise, and later detonated the bombs using a Norwegian patrol plane.
Washington has repeatedly denied responsibility for the attack, denouncing Hersh’s revelations as “fiction.”
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