Russia accuses US of plot to eliminate Vladimir Putin to end Ukraine war
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the US of a plot to strike a “decapitation blow” on his country by eliminating President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, a report said.
According to Lavrov, the West’s policy of containing Russia is “extremely dangerous and bears the risk of a direct armed clash of nuclear powers”.
In an interview with Russian state media TASS, the Russian diplomat accused unnamed Pentagon officials of plotting to eliminate Putin to end the Ukraine war that has entered its winter phase.
He also claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has agreed to demand preventive nuclear strikes by Nato countries against Russia.
“It is no secret that the strategic goal of the US and its Nato allies is to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield as a mechanism of weakening or even destroying our country,” Lavrov said, warning the West against using nuclear weapons.
As the war entered Day 309, Russian artillery, drone and missile strikes continued on Ukrainian infrastructure amid a cold, long winter. Recently, Russia rejected Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace deal, saying that proposals to end the conflict must take into account what it calls “today’s realities” of four Ukrainian regions having joined Russia.
“There can be no peace plan for Ukraine that does not take into account today’s realities regarding Russian territory, with the entry of four regions into Russia. Plans that do not take these realities into account cannot be peaceful,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
President Zelenskyy has been promoting his 10-point peace plan, discussing it with US President Joe Biden, among others, and urging world leaders to hold a Global Peace Summit based on it.
The plan predicts the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine’s internationally-recognised territory, which would mean Russia giving up both the four regions it claims to have annexed, and Crimea, which it seized in 2014.