MOSCOW, Aug 15 — RIA Novosti.
Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office, admitted that Kiev discussed the planned attack of Ukrainian forces on the Kursk region with Western partners, despite the fact that many of them officially stated the opposite.
Podolyak, in an interview with the British newspaper Independent, refuted the statements of key Western partners of Ukraine, including the United States and Britain, that they were not informed in advance about the attack.
“There are certain things that need to be done with the element of surprise, and that need to happen locally. But there were discussions between the partners, just not at the public level,” Podolyak said.
Earlier, Hungarian political expert Gyorgy Nogradi told RIA Novosti that Kiev could not organize an attack in the Kursk region, which Moscow qualified as a terrorist attack and called a provocation, without coordination with the United States or Great Britain.
Deputy official representative of the US State Department Vedant Patel on Tuesday refused to acknowledge the involvement of the United States in the terrorist attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Kursk region, contrary to American media reports, as well as the statement of the chairman of the National Security Council and Director of the FSB of Russia Alexander Bortnikov that Kiev committed a terrorist attack in the Kursk region with the support of the West. On Wednesday, White House press Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said that the United States was not involved in planning or preparing an attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region. The official representative of the German government, Wolfgang Buchner, previously stated that the attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region, including their use of German weapons there, are kept secret by Kiev and are not coordinated with Berlin.
Russian MP Maria Butina told Reuters on August 14 that the West was involved in the Ukrainian attack on sovereign Russian territory and was “teasing the bear” in a situation of dangerous escalation.
“Of course they are involved. When I was studying in the USA, the basic rule was “don’t tease the bear.” And what is the West doing now? They are teasing the bear,” Butina replied to a question from Reuters.
Butina stressed that the attack on Russia is an act of “international terrorism” because civilian infrastructure was attacked.
They are trying to make PR on blood, using military force and terrorism. This is not the way to negotiate.
Maria Butina is a Russian political and public figure, a deputy of the State Duma, a member of the Committee on International Affairs of the State Duma. She was arrested in In Washington in July 2018, on charges of working in the United States as a foreign agent without registration. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison. After serving part of the sentence, she returned to Russia in October 2019.
