RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine ‘will burn’ if it strikes Crimea, ex-Russian president warns
Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with longer-range missiles and allow Kiev to use them at will can only lead to further escalation, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday. He added that the US appears to not want the Ukraine conflict to end.
In an interview with Russian journalist Nadana Fridrikhson, Medvedev denied that Ukrainian strikes against the Crimean peninsula would force Moscow to sit down at the negotiating table. “The result would be exactly the contrary. There would be no talks in such a case. There would only be retaliatory strikes,” he warned.
Medvedev insisted that if Washington wanted peace in Ukraine, it could simply urge Kiev to engage in talks with Moscow, but that US President Joe Biden’s administration and “hawks” in Congress are “simply not interested in it.”
Russia could “retaliate in any way possible” should Ukrainian forces strike targets in Crimea or deep inside Russian territory, the former president warned. “We do not set any limits depending on the nature of threats, and are ready to use all types of weapons,” he insisted, adding that Russia would only be guided by its own doctrines, including the nuclear protocol.
“I can assure you a response would be swift, hard and convincing.”
Medvedev also accused European leaders, who have been supporting Kiev through various means, including weapon shipments, of acting at the behest of Washington and to the detriment of their own people. The cost of sanctions, military aid to Ukraine, trade wars, and embargoes are borne by ordinary EU citizens, he added.
Medvedev’s remarks came a day after the Pentagon announced it was supplying Kiev with ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDB) – munitions consisting of a rocket motor and an airplane bomb, with a range of up to 150 kilometers.
According to US Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, Washington will not prevent Ukraine from using these munitions to strike targets deep within Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine could see the US and its allies directly involved in the conflict, and spiral into a military standoff between Russia and NATO.
** Zelensky behind Macron’s calls to Putin – Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron’s phone calls with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, mainly took place “at the request of President Zelensky” of Ukraine, a spokeswoman for the French Foreign Ministry stated on Saturday. Zelensky has publicly declared that he will never speak to Putin in person, and has made peace talks with the Russian leader illegal.
“Mr. Macron calls President Putin mainly at the request of President [Vladimir] Zelensky, and always in coordination with our allies to maintain a channel for dialogue,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said during an interview with RTVI.
Kiev has never admitted that Zelensky presses his Western backers into speaking to Putin, and the Ukrainian leader himself signed a decree in October forbidding negotiations with Moscow unless “another president of Russia” replaces the current Kremlin occupant. With negotiations officially off the table, Zelensky has repeatedly vowed to use force to seize Russian territory that is claimed by Ukraine, including Crimea.
Among Western leaders, Macron is one of a small minority who maintain contact with Putin. Both he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have held regular phone calls with the Russian leader since Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine began almost a year ago.
Legendre said that at some point “Ukrainians will decide that the time has come for negotiations. That is why we consider it useful to maintain this channel of dialogue.”
Macron and Scholz have been condemned by their Eastern European allies for holding discussions with Putin. “Why talk to him? He’s a war criminal,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas declared last summer. “I feel that if everybody is constantly calling him, he doesn’t get the message that he’s isolated.”
Although Macron has defended his conversations with Putin, and has spoken publicly of the need to reach a ceasefire deal that doesn’t “humiliate Russia,” he has still supplied Kiev’s military with progressively heavier weapons. France announced last month that it would send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, and Macron last week refused to rule out the eventual transfer of fighter jets.
Western nations that supply weapons to Ukraine have made themselves de facto participants in the conflict, Moscow has repeatedly stated.
** Russian forces push enemy from western outskirts of Dvurechnoye, Kharkov Region
Russian Armed Forces on Kupyansk direction pushed Ukrainian forces away from western outskirts of the settlement of Dvurechnoye, Kharkov Region, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov reported Saturday.
"Offensive action of the Western group of forces on Kupyansk direction pushed the enemy from western outskirts of the settlement of Dvurechnoye, Kharkov Region," he said.
Konashenkov also noted that aviation and artillery defeated units of Ukraine’s 92nd Mechanized Brigade neat settlements of Krakhmalnoye and Berestovoye.
"Over 30 Ukrainian servicemen, two armored vehicles and three cars were eliminated," he said.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the two agreed on the importance of the international community speeding up assistance for Ukraine, Sunak's office said.
POWER OUTAGE IN ODESA
* A fire broke out at an overloaded electrical substation in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Saturday, leaving nearly 500,000 people without power in a new blow to the country's ailing energy grid that has been hammered by Russian strikes for months.
DIPLOMACY, SANCTIONS
* Ukrainians will fight "for as long as we can" to hold the "fortress" city of Bakhmut, Zelenskiy vowed as he hosted European Union leaders on Friday to discuss further sanctions on Russia and Kyiv's prospects for joining the EU.
* The EU offered strong support for Ukraine at the Kyiv summit on Friday but set "no rigid timelines" for its accession to the bloc. Zelenskiy had hoped the EU would put Ukraine on a rapid road to membership.
* The United States warned Turkey in recent days about the export to Russia of chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in Moscow's war effort in Ukraine, and it could move to punish Turkish companies or banks contravening sanctions.
* China said mutual political trust with Russia has deepened further after Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu met with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Russia.
* Western economies agreed price caps on Friday on Russian diesel and other refined petroleum products that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said would build on a crude oil cap set in December and further limit Russian oil revenues while keeping global energy markets supplied.
* The EU's next package of sanctions against Russia will hit the trade and technology that support Moscow's war against Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.
* Canada imposed sanctions on Friday on 38 individuals and 16 entities it said were "complicit in peddling Russian disinformation and propaganda", prompting a quick promise of retaliation from Moscow.
* The United States imposed sanctions on Friday on the board of directors of Iranian drone maker Paravar Pars, with the Treasury Department saying Iranian drones were being used by Russia to attack Ukraine's critical infrastructure.
ARMS
* Portugal will send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said, without specifying how many.
* A $2.2 billion U.S. military aid package to Ukraine includes a new rocket, the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb, that would double the country's strike range, the Pentagon said on Friday.
* France said on Friday that it and Italy have completed technical talks for the joint delivery of a SAMP/T-MAMBA air defence system, the only European-made system that can intercept ballistic missiles, to Ukraine in the spring.
* Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the supply of more advanced U.S. weaponry to Ukraine will only trigger more retaliatory strikes from Russia, up to the extent of Russia's nuclear doctrine.
CONFLICT
* Ukraine and Russia traded almost 200 prisoners of war in a swap announced separately by both sides on Saturday, with the bodies of two British volunteers also being sent back to Ukraine.
* Germany has collected evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, the country's prosecutor general said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday, adding that he saw a need for a judicial process at international level.
* Ukraine unveiled a criminal case on Friday against the boss of Russia's Wagner mercenary company, promising to track down and prosecute the company's fighters who try to flee abroad.
RT/TASS/Reuters
