‘THE WEST has been behaving brazenly in Ukraine for years, Russia was forced to react in order to save people in Donbass,’ Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik said on Monday.
His remarks came in an interview with TASS on the eve of his visit to Moscow.
‘For many years the West did not react to the extermination of the Russian population in Ukraine, there were daily murders and bombings in Donbass.
‘The West had prepared an offensive against Lugansk and Donetsk with Ukrainian forces. They trained their units, and sent a significant number of their own mercenaries.
‘All this was clear, and Russia was forced to retaliate. But the way it does it is very different from the way the Americans have done it in many parts of the world.
‘Russia is conducting a special operation whose purpose is indeed to destroy the enemy, but it carries out its mission so that there are as few casualties as possible,’ Dodik stressed.
The politician recalled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Munich speech, which was not taken seriously by the West.
‘We all remember President Putin’s warning at the Munich Conference that Russia cannot calmly accept the approach to its borders and will never allow it.
‘All those long-standing warnings were not taken seriously.
‘But it is here (in Europe) the West can behave impudently with us, the Serbs, cut off oil, impose sanctions, but Russia is a different story, this impudence will not go down well with it. Russia had to retaliate,’ he insisted.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has promised a ‘proper response’ from Moscow if there are any claims to Russian territory, including Crimea.
‘Crimea is an integral part of Russia, so any claims to Russian territory will entail a proper response,’ Peskov told the media on Monday.
He was responding to statements by an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office, Mikhail Podolyak, about the need to get long-range missiles from the West, with which it would be possible to deliver strikes to Russian territory, including Crimea.
‘The republics of Donbass are independent states whose independence is recognised by Russia and which have requested assistance from Russia to ensure their security.
‘Russia has been doing precisely that,’ Peskov stressed.
Meanwhile on Monday, State Duma (Russian parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said that the West is trying to avoid being held responsible for a defeat in Ukraine by saying it’s up to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky whether to hold talks or not.
‘A new rhetoric is coming out of Washington and Brussels: The issue of talks on a peaceful settlement in Ukraine depends entirely on Zelensky.
‘Previously, they insisted on the opposite. They stated that the conflict should be decided exclusively on the battlefield.
‘They realised that there would be no victory with Zelensky. And they don’t want to bear responsibility for a defeat,’ Volodin said on the Telegram channel.
He said the armed forces of Ukraine hadn’t lived up to Washington and Brussels’ expectations. ‘Zelensky promised victory. The result disappointed the Western sponsors,’ the lawmaker said.
Volodin also pointed out that the domestic political situation in the United States and the European Union is forcing their officials to react. ‘Americans and Europeans have begun to express their position on the events in Ukraine.
‘They are not willing to pay out of their pockets for the policy of war … inflation, rising prices, problems with energy resources and other difficulties that have to be faced, can’t but worry them on the eve of winter,’ he said.
As fighting continues, Ukrainian troops are shelling Novaya Kakhovka in the Kherson region again, eight aerial explosions were heard, the city’s military-civilian administration said on Sunday.
‘The air defence system was activated again at 20:44 Moscow time. Eight aerial explosions were heard,’ it wrote on Telegram channel.
Thirty-four rockets fired by Ukrainian troops have been intercepted by Russian air defence forces over Novaya Kakhovka, the city’s military-civilian administration added on Sunday.
‘According to our estimates, Ukrainian fascists have fired 34 rockets at Novaya Kakhovka since noon on September 18. All of them were downed by our air defence systems,’ it wrote on its Telegram channel.
According to the administration, no damages were reported.
Ukrainian troops have been shelling several cities in the Kherson region since August 28, destroying schools, social infrastructure and damaging residential houses. As a result of Ukraine’s strike on central Kherson last Friday, three people were killed and 13 more were wounded. Later, one more injured woman died in hospital.
More than 180 shells were fired by Ukrainian troops at the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) during the day, Eduard Basurin, deputy chief of the DPR People’s Militia, reported on Sunday.
‘During the day, according to the DPR’s mission to the Joint Control and Coordination Centre, the enemy fire more than 180 shells from BM-27 Uragan and BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launch systems, tanks, artillery of 155mm, 152mm and 122mm calibre, and 120mm mortars’ he told the People’s Militia Telegram channel.
According to Basurin, eleven settlements came under shelling. ‘Seven homes and five infrastructure facilities were damaged,’ he said.
Western countries’ supplies of long-reach artillery and rocket systems to Ukraine make them accomplices of Kiev’s crimes against civilians, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said on Sunday.
‘Providing the Kiev regime with long-reach artillery and rocket launchers makes our Western ex-partners accomplices of Nazi Ukraine’s crimes against civilians,’ he wrote on his Twitter account.
‘It’s disgusting that weapons supply is a lucrative business-project for the US and UK.
‘Where are the notorious “Western values”?’ he noted.
- Moscow considers the development of its strategic partnership with Beijing an unconditional priority, and is not subject to external influence, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said on Monday at Russian-Chinese consultations on strategic stability with Yang Jiechi, member of the Politburo of China’s Central Committee of the Communist Party.
‘The course to develop a strategic partnership with China is an unconditional priority of Russia’s foreign policy, it enjoys broad support of the peoples of the two countries, it is based on deep mutual trust, and therefore is not subject to external influence,’ he stressed.
Patrushev continued that this attitude has been confirmed on the top level several times, including at the meeting of President Vladimir Putin with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Samarkand a few days ago.
