UKRAINE MAY NOT EXIST IN TWO YEARS, FORMER RUSSIAN PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV SAYS

Wed 15 June 2022:

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, said earlier on Wednesday that Ukraine might not exist in two years.

“I saw a report that Ukraine wants to receive LNG (liquified natural gas) under a lend-lease agreement from its overseas masters with payment for delivery in two years,” Medvedev, who is now deputy head of the Security Council, wrote on Telegram.

“And who said that in two yeas Ukraine will even exist on the world map?” said the close ally of President Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian president has appealed for heavy weapons from the West, criticising the “restrained behaviour” of some European leaders which he said had “slowed down arms supplies very much”.

“I am grateful for what is coming, but it must come faster,” he told Danish journalists in an online briefing on Tuesday.

The US and the UK have announced that they are supplying Kyiv with long-range precision artillery batteries, despite Kremlin concerns.

More weapons

Dozens of defence ministers from NATO and other parts of the world are expected to discuss weapons deliveries to Ukraine on Wednesday in Brussels, the Reuters news agency reports US officials as having said.

“Russia has not given up on the fight, despite its pretty anaemic progress … What we have is this grinding, slow, incremental Russian operation,” a senior US defence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

“So the question is what do the Ukrainians need to continue the success they’ve already seen in slowing down and thwarting that Russian objective and that’ll be a major focus for the defence ministers,” the official said about the third such meeting led by United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

Ukraine needs 1,000 howitzers, 500 tanks and 1,000 drones, among other heavy weapons, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Monday. In addition, Zelenskyy has called for more modern anti-missile systems.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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