A clash between Moscow and the West through intermediary countries? This is what Vladimir Putin essentially suggested during a press conference this Wednesday, June 5, on the sidelines of the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum. “If anyone considers it possible to supply such weapons to the combat zone to strike our territory […]why should we not have the right to supply our weapons of the same type in regions of the world where the sensitive installations of the countries which act in this way against Russia will be struck?”, launched the leader, without specifying which third countries he talked.
He was referring to the possible use by the Ukrainian army of Western weapons to strike Russian positions and rear bases installed on Russian soil. A step that kyiv wishes to take and which divides the West. If France, Germany and the United States are now in favor, Italy, a NATO member, remains reluctant, for fear of provoking a military escalation.
Vladimir Putin also reaffirmed that Western military instructors “are already in Ukraine” under the guise of “mercenaries” and “are suffering losses there”. Losses about which “the United States and European states prefer to remain silent,” according to him.
Emmanuel Macron recently announced that he was considering sending military instructors to Ukraine to speed up the training of Ukrainian soldiers, considered too slow and weakening the country’s resistance. The French president, who will receive Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday in Paris, even said that he was considering forming a European coalition for this purpose. The Kremlin, annoyed, was quick to respond. “No instructor involved in the training of Ukrainian soldiers has immunity” from the strikes, declared Tuesday, June 4, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov. “It doesn’t matter whether they are French or not.” The United States, for its part, has ruled out any military presence in Ukraine.
Putin says he is ready to negotiate
In this three-hour press conference, Vladimir Putin reiterated that he was ready to sit down at the negotiating table and that the best way to stop the war was for the West to “stop delivering weapons” to the ‘Ukraine. “Providing weapons to a conflict zone is always a bad thing. Especially when the suppliers not only supply weapons, but control them. This is a very serious and very dangerous measure,” he said. -he declares.
He also downplayed the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine and claimed that the number of Ukrainian servicemen killed in combat was five times higher. Same ratio, according to Vladimir Putin, for prisoners of war. According to him, Russia currently holds 6,465 Ukrainian soldiers, compared to 1,348 Russian soldiers imprisoned in Ukraine. However, these figures are much lower than Western estimates. Many experts speak of several tens of thousands of Russian soldiers killed. The BBC and the independent Russian media Mediazona say having verified the death of at least 50,000 Russian soldiers since the start of the war in Ukraine, in February 2022. On the Ukrainian side, Volodymyr Zelensky reported 31,000 deaths last February, but official American sources were already speaking of 70,000 soldiers killed in August 2023.
“No imperial ambitions”
The head of the Kremlin also defended himself from any imperial ambition. While Russia was not invited to the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, he reiterated that he did not intend to attack NATO, several members of which are border countries, such as Finland or Estonia .
Asked by AFP about the presence of the flags of contemporary Russia, Imperial Russia and the USSR in front of the Gazprom headquarters, where the press conference took place, Vladimir Putin replied: “Don’t look for our ambitions imperial. They do not exist. And added: “We are making up that Russia wants to attack NATO […] Who invented this nonsense? Bullshit”, pretending to ignore that he denied for months that he was preparing a military offensive against Ukraine, before launching his assault on February 24, 2022.
If the Kremlin denies wanting to recreate its lost empire, Moscow has annexed five Ukrainian regions and many Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, point to the fact that they once belonged to the Russian and Soviet empires.