US, Russia defense chiefs speak amid rising tensions over Crimea attack

Russia’s Defense Ministry, however, said that Belousov warned Austin of the dangers of continued US arms supplies to Ukraine in the 28-month-old war.

 

“A.R. Belousov pointed to the danger of further escalating the situation through continued supplies of American weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces,” the ministry statement said on the Telegram messaging app after the call.

 

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plunged to their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

 

Diplomatic contacts between President Vladimir Putin’s government and President Joe Biden’s administration are now at “an absolute minimum,” Moscow said last week.

 

Over the weekend, Russia said the United States was directly responsible for a Ukrainian attack on the Crimean peninsula with five US-supplied missiles that killed four people.

 

The Pentagon said earlier this week that Ukraine makes its own targeting decisions.

 

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and views it as an integral part of its territory, although most of the world condemned the annexation and sees the Black Sea peninsula as part of Ukraine.

 

Supplies of US weapons to Ukraine resumed in April with Congressional approval of a $61 billion aid package. The US

 

says it stands by Ukraine’s demands for Russian troops to leave and for Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders to be restored.

 

On Tuesday, Moscow’s arms control point man, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, warned that if the West underestimated Moscow’s resolve, it could lead to “tragic and fatal” consequences because the US and its allies were confronting a major nuclear power – Russia.

 

In a 2023 call with Russia’s Shoigu, Austin had pointed to risky behavior by Russian fighter pilots that caused a US

drone to crash in the Black Sea near Ukraine.

 

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Jun 26 2024 | 9:21 AM IST