The Kremlin today deemed Western arms deliveries to Ukraine to be "useless" at a time when the French president, German Chancellor and the Italian Prime Minister are in Kiev.
"We would like to hope that the leaders of these three countries (...) will not only focus on supporting Ukraine and plans to continue to flood it with weapons. It is completely useless and will prolong the suffering of the people and cause more damage to the country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters."
He said that "on the contrary, we hope that they will urge [UKRAINIAN] President Volodymyr Zhelensky to have a realistic approach to the situation.
Medvedev's taunts
For his part, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev mocked the visit of the three European leaders in English, calling them "[A] specialist in frogs, the one [WHO IS AN EXPERT] in sausages and the one in pasta."
He said the visit of Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi has "zero utility" and hinted that they would get drunk on "horika", Ukrainian vodka.
"They promise to rejoin the EU, old howitzers, then they will get drunk on horika, go home by train like 100 years ago," Medvedev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, tweeted.
Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and prime minister from 2012 to 2020, is currently vice chairman of Russia's powerful Security Council.
"Moscow ready for talks"
In addition, the head of Russia's negotiating team Vladimir Medinsky said today that Moscow is ready to resume peace talks with Ukraine, but has not received a response to proposals made to Kiev in previous rounds of talks.
After intermittent talks between Russia and Ukraine in March, including a meeting of delegations in Istanbul, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have since collapsed. The two sides accuse each other of not negotiating in good faith.
"Reductions in gas supply were not planned."
In another development,Russia's ambassador to the European Union said, according to Ria Novosti, that the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which carries gas from Russia to Europe under the Baltic Sea, may stop operating due to problems with the repair of its turbines in Canada.
Gazprom said the day before yesterday (Tuesday) that it had reduced gas supplies through the pipeline to Germany to 100 million cubic metres (mcm) a day, down from 167 mcm, citing the late return of equipment sent for repair.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said the recent reductions in Russian gas supplies to Europe were not planned, but were due to problems with turbine maintenance caused by the sanctions.
Russian gas supplies to Europe fell further today, raising concerns about replenishing gas storage for the winter and leading to a diplomatic standoff as Russian supplier Garprom blamed Western sanctions for hampering maintenance work.
Source: AMP, AFP, Reuters, dpa
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
