Putin’s ally says Moscow is in “military confrontation” with US and UK

One of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies said today that Moscow is currently engaged in a “military confrontation” with the US and Britain and that the West is trying to wipe Russia off the political map of the world.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, considered by diplomats to be one of the key influencers on Putin, claimed the war in Ukraine was not a conflict between Moscow and Kyiv, but between Russia and NATO.

Patrushev claimed the West continues to tear Russia apart by supplying arms to Ukraine.

“The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv – this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and most importantly the United States and Great Britain,” Patrushev said in an interview with the newspaper “Argumenti i Fakti”.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, considered by diplomats to be one of the key influences on Putin (pictured together in 2017), claimed the war in Ukraine was not a conflict between Moscow and Kyiv, but between Russia and NATO

As the Russian attack on Ukraine continues Tuesday in Bakhmut, Ukraine, the Ukrainian military fired an anti-aircraft weapon

“Westerners’ plans are to pull Russia further apart and eventually just wipe it off the political map of the world,” Patrushev said.

Describing the war in Ukraine as an existential struggle with an aggressive and arrogant West, Putin has said Russia will use all available means to protect itself and its people against any attacker. He has promised victory in Ukraine despite a series of battlefield setbacks.

The United States has dismissed Russian claims that it wants to destroy Russia, the world’s largest producer of natural resources, while President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could trigger World War III.

When asked about Patrushev’s statements, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said NATO and the United States were part of the Ukraine conflict.

“In fact, they have already become an indirect party to this conflict, pumping Ukraine with weapons, technology, intelligence and so on,” Peskov said at a regular news conference.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War II and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union and the United States came closest to a deliberate nuclear war.

When asked about Patrushev’s statements, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said NATO and the United States were part of the Ukraine conflict. Pictured: Ukrainian military personnel fire an anti-aircraft weapon in the frontline town of Bakhmut on Tuesday as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues

The United States and its allies have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab, while Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier is driven from its territory.

A former Soviet spy who has known Putin since the 1970s, Patrushev’s views provide a glimpse into thinking at the highest levels of the Kremlin. He dismissed CIA Director William Burns’ warnings of an invasion of Ukraine in 2021.

In a Soviet-style analysis of the West, Patrushev characterized Western political elites as corrupt and controlled by transnational corporations and business clans that planned and carried out “color revolutions” around the world.

“The American state is just a shell for a conglomerate of giant corporations that rule the country and are trying to rule the world,” Patrushev said.

Local residents remove debris and carry belongings from a shop destroyed by recent shelling in Donetsk on Tuesday

The United States, Patrushev said, had sowed chaos in Afghanistan, Vietnam and the Middle East, and for years tried to undermine Russia’s “unique” culture and language.

Russia, he said, had been a victim of Western intentions to push it back to the borders of 15th-century Moscow, and accused the West of bleeding Ukraine dry to undermine Russia.

“There is no place for our country in the West,” he said.

In response, he said, Russia will gain economic sovereignty and financial independence while building up its armed forces and special services to deter any potential attacker.

Russian business and private capital must become more “nationally oriented”.

“The younger generation should be inspired by the ideas of creative work for the benefit of our motherland and not sit in the offices of Western companies,” he said.