Russian President Vladimir Putin he has returned to center stage, in his usual capacity as defender of Russia against aggression by hostile foreign powers. The target is always the West, especially the United States, which has gone far beyond the framework of the Cold War. By engaging in a real “hot conflict” with Moscow. On the opposite front, Volodymyr Zelensky made a stop in Warsaw, cashing in a new fighter endowment from his main European sponsor. Good news for the Ukrainians, who are strengthening their military arsenal with the declared aim of taking back all the territories conquered by the enemy. Crimea too, within six months.
The Kremlin attacks
The US supported the color revolutions in the former Soviet republics and “the coup d’état in Kiev” in 2014, an episode “at the origin of the current crisis”. The Russian president said so Vladimir Putin addressing the US Ambassador to Moscow, Lynne Tracy, during the ceremony for the presentation of the credentials of the new ambassadors. Relations between Russia and the United States are “in deep crisis”, Putin added.
Between Russia and the USA it is a phase of ‘hot conflict’, meanwhile says Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov, warning that we are in fact witnessing a hybrid war, some forms of which are unprecedented. The preconditions are missing, the Kremlin says, for talks with Ukraine.
Furthermore, Russian President Putin added, relations between the European Union and Russia have “deteriorated” because the EU has “begun a geopolitical confrontation” with Moscow, the Kremlin leader said during the ceremony. But Russia “doesn’t want to isolate itself” and remains open to “cooperation” with all countries on the basis of the principle of “equality”, underlined the Russian president.
In the meeting with the ambassadors, the Russian president told the Danish one that he hopes that Copenhagen “will support the proposal” by Moscow “to set up an independent international commission” on the explosions which in September damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines which connect Russia to Germany through the Baltic waters.
The tension in the annexed regions
Then presiding over a meeting of the National Security Council, which was attended by the heads of pro-Russian administrations of the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Moscow, Putin argued that the potential of Western special services is used in the preparation of terrorist acts by Kiev in Russia. And he observed that the situation in the annexed regions “remains tense”, due to the bombings and terrorist attacks in Kiev which “spare no one”. Putin therefore appealed to the forces of order, the judiciary and the intelligence services to “guarantee the safety of the local population”.
Zelensky and Warsaw
The Ukrainian president is in Warsaw, where he was awarded the Order of the White Eagle ‘for the defense of human rights’. Poland has already transferred a total of eight MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine and is preparing to transfer six more, Polish President Andrzej Duda said. And he assures that Warsaw will ask for further security guarantees for Ukraine at the next NATO summit to be held in Vilnius in July. Poland “in the future will be able to transfer the entire fleet of Mig-29s”, about thirty fighters, to Ukraine, “after agreement with NATO partners”, because they are currently used in patrol missions by the Alliance, reported Duda.
In Kiev plans continue to be drawn up for a large-scale counter-offensive, for which 40,000 men are already ready. According to the president’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, all the occupied territories could be liberated: “Russia – he said – does not have sufficient resources
to handle the situation in Crimea and Ukraine will retake the peninsula in a very short time: six months, five months, seven months”. The Ukrainians have also attempted a new incursion into Russian territory: the FSB has announced that a ” small Ukrainian aircraft crashed in the Bryansk region, on the border, and the pilot was arrested”.
The Polish president has pointed out that Warsaw still needs the MiGs, but when the new FA-50 and F-16 aircraft ordered by South Korea and the United States arrive, he could consider handing over his entire old fighter fleet to the ‘Ukraine.
ANSA agency
For the Kremlin ‘there are no preconditions’, for Ukraine the war could end this year (ANSA)
NATO
During today’s Atlantic Council, the allies “decided to offer a multi-year support program to Ukraine, in order to strengthen Kiev’s armed forces, their interoperability and the path towards NATO standards, since the future of the Ukraine is within the Euro-Atlantic family.” NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said this, specifying that at the moment the allies are meeting “immediate needs” while now it is necessary to “strengthen institutions, standards and doctrine” to support the path towards NATO in Kiev.
Furthermore, according to Stoltenberg, “China refuses to condemn Ukraine’s aggression, supports the Russian economy and echoes its propaganda: any lethal aid would be a historic mistake with profound implications, and the allies, including the majors, they made it clear what the consequences would be.”
As for defense spending, according to the NATO secretary general “2% of GDP for defense must not be a goal in the distant future but a strong commitment, so that 2% is really the minimum, and on this I I look forward to clear language at the Vilnius summit”.