President Putin has weighed in on NATO leaders' moves to loosen its self-imposed leash on the Zelensky regime in its ability to use its long-range precision artillery and missiles to attack the Russian hinterland, telling reporters what Russia's response might be.
"If someone considers it possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to strike at our territory and create problems for us, then why do we not have the right to supply our weapons of the same class to those regions of the world where attacks on sensitive facilities of those countries who are doing this in relation to Russia will be carried out?" Putin said Wednesday on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
"The answer may be asymmetric. We will think about it," Putin said.
"Delivering arms to a warzone is always bad. Even more so if those who are delivering are not just delivering weapons but also controlling them. This is a very serious and very dangerous step," the Russian president added, commenting on NATO's recent moves in Ukraine specifically.
White House Puts Planet on the Precipice Over an Election
“I think we are extremely close to the abyss,” Jackson Hinkle told Sputnik’s Dimitri Simes on SPIEF's sidelines on Friday, commenting on the Biden administration’s escalatory behavior.
“Given that there’s this uptick” in Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, “the West is beginning to freak out again. The elections are coming soon. Joe Biden needs a victory at some point or another. Unfortunately, he can’t find that in Gaza, he can’t find that in Ukraine, and when you look at it, what is their only option? Their only options are to find some sort of a political off-road, which they don’t want to take because that’s going to hurt Biden before the elections, or to drastically escalate the operation for Ukraine. It’s very frightening, but it seems like that’s what they’re doing,” Hinkle said.
“America seems to be the only country that’s allowed to either bomb civilian populations, bomb leaders or even bomb chief generals, like what Trump did to Qasem Soleimani in Iran, to commit these acts of war without actually officially being in a war. It’s a very incredible feat for the United States to be able to do this,” the commentator added.
“They’ve got these French trainees in Ukraine, these are legitimate targets for Russia, of course. You’re talking about preparation of a NATO contingency for a rapid response of 300,000 NATO soldiers. Things could get out of hand very quickly and it seems like the US is preparing to actually take those measures. I’ve never been more fearful of the odds of what is about to happen than right now, and maybe I’m wrong to think that but it seems like that’s where we’re headed,” Hinkle warned.
SPIEF Squashes West's Attempt to 'Isolate' Russia
“This is, first of all the most crowded forum I’ve ever been at, in the best way possible. There’s hundreds of countries present. There are over 22,000 attending this forum over the course these several days, and when you walk around you see people from all over the world,” Hinkle said of his experience at SPIEF so far.
“Overall when you look at the crowd here, it makes me laugh, because we’ve heard for two and a half years now that the Biden administration has claimed that Russia is being isolated on the global stage. And when I look at what’s going on here it’s not only people from Africa, from Latin America, even a lot of European countries, Asia. Yesterday on the panel, we had an advisor to Xi Jinping – Zhang Wei-Wei, a professor in China. Everyone is here, everyone is striking huge business deals and economic deals, and also we have a bunch of philosophers and great thinkers and journalists here who are sharing information with one another,” Hinkle said.
“To simply put it – Russia if you look out here you can tell it’s definitely not isolated on any global stage,” Hinkle, who knows a thing or two personally about efforts by the deep state to silence and isolate its critics, emphasized.