Russia is at war not only with Ukraine but with the collective West
New Delhi: Russia at the moment is conducting combat operations not only with Ukraine’s armed forces but with the collective West, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said.
“I cannot but emphasize the fact that today we are at war not so much with Ukraine and the Ukrainian army as with the collective West,” Shoigu said. He stressed that Ukraine had almost run out of its own weapons of Soviet manufacture.
“At this point, we are really at war with the collective West, with NATO, or vice versa – with NATO and with the collective West,” he added, stressing that Russia was successfully finding ways to counter weapons being supplied to Ukraine by the West.
“As we talk about this (about Russia’s struggle with the collective West), we mean not only the weapons that are supplied in huge quantities. Naturally, we find ways to counter these weapons. We have in mind, of course, the Western systems that there exist: communication systems, information processing systems, reconnaissance systems, and satellite intelligence systems,” Shoigu said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting with Swiss President Ignazio Cassis on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly High-Level Week said “Kyiv and Western countries are disrupting efforts to resolve the situation in Ukraine by political and diplomatic means,”
“During the discussion of the situation in Ukraine in the context of Russia’s special military operation, Sergey Lavrov outlined the principled approaches of the Russian side. The dangerous nature of the policy of the Kyiv regime and Western countries to escalate and prolong the crisis and disrupt efforts to resolve it politically and diplomatically was emphasized,” the report said.
At the meeting, the Russian side also stated that Switzerland has departed from the principle of neutrality, joining the EU anti-Russian sanctions and pursuing an unfriendly line towards Russia. “Moscow appealed to Bern to return to the policy of a neutral state, which previously earned the Confederation recognition in the international arena,” the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.
Lavrov and Cassis also discussed many practical issues on the bilateral and global agenda in view of Switzerland’s election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2023-2024.
(Vinayak)
