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Russian president blames West for stoking 'flames of war'

Friday, 21 July 2023 4:00 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 21 July 2023 4:13 PM ]

Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurates the first natural gas liquefaction line on a gravity-type base for the Arctic LNG-2 project as he visits the Novatek-Murmansk's Offshore Superfacility Construction Center in the village of Belokamenka, Murmansk region, Russia July 20, 2023. (File photo by Sputnik via Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has slammed the West for stoking the "flames of war" by supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Putin said on Friday in televised remarks to members of his Security Council that Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which started last month, has failed and the huge caches of Western weapons and munitions supplied to Kiev simply "burn well" on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Since Russia launched its special military operation in Donbas in late February 2022, the US-led West has supplied Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars of weapons and munitions to fight against the Russians.

Kiev, last month, launched a massive counteroffensive using the Western weapons and munitions provided to its forces.

"In any case, there are no results yet" from the counteroffensive, Putin assured in the broadcast of the meeting with the Kremlin's Security Council.

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"Neither the colossal resources that have been pumped into the Kiev regime, nor the supplies of Western weapons, tanks, artillery, armored vehicles and missiles are helping," Putin reassured the Russian nation.

In the meantime, a senior aide to Kiev told AFP that Ukraine’s forces still needed more weapons and munitions to continue the "long and difficult" fight against the Russian forces.

Ukraine is already using US-supplied cluster bombs against Russian forces despite international concerns that such munitions can cause heavy casualties to the civilian population if used in residential areas.

Meanwhile, Russian forces remain in control of large swathes of territory in Donbas' pro-Moscow regions while military operations in most parts of the warfront appear to be frozen.

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Also on Friday, Putin warned that Moscow would use "all the means at our disposal" to protect Belarus in case of an attack against the country which is a close ally to the Kremlin and has formed a "Union State" with it.

Putin said in his remarks on Friday that any aggression against Russia's neighbor and close ally Belarus would be seen by the Kremlin as an attack against the Russians.

"Unleashing aggression against Belarus will mean aggression against the Russian Federation," Putin warned, adding, Moscow would react to any aggression against Minsk "with all the means at our disposal."

Moscow and Minsk agreed to transfer Russian tactical nuclear warheads to Belarus.

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