One of Vladimir Putin’s ministers has a new theory about the “root cause” of the Ukraine war – and, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t say the Russian president’s own land grab is to blame.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, pinned the two-and-a-half year conflict on the US and Ukraine’s “fantasies” on Thursday.
According to Russian state news agency TASS, Ryabkov said: “It has been repeatedly said that Washington’s policy of connivance with Kyiv’s most destructive, far-reaching plans and fantasies is by and large the root cause [of] this acute crisis, fraught with high risks and the possibility of sliding into a full-scale conflict between Russia and the historic West.”
Putin decided to invade Ukraine in February 2022, baselessly claiming Kyiv was run by “neo-Nazis” – Ukraine quickly wrote it off as a land grab and has been trying to expel the Russians ever since.
Like the rest of the West, the US has been supporting Ukraine in its self-defence by providing weapons and substantial funds.
But Washington has so far refused to let Kyiv fire Western-supplied missiles into Russian land out of fear it would expand the regional conflict into a global war.
The Pentagon said last month that “no one capability” would change the outcome of the war, but has not officially ruled out changing the restrictions around using long-range missiles.
And Ryabkov claimed these words were still not enough to reassure Moscow that the conflict would escalate.
He said: “We need not some signals, but real evidence that there is an understanding of the futility of unconditional support for the minions in Kyiv, and of the dangers that are exacerbated in a situation where this policy is not revised.”
Russia has been bombarding Ukraine for more than two years.
The Russian minister’s remarks also follow Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s bold prediction that the war could end in 2025, as long as their allies continue to support Kyiv.