Moscow has claimed “100% certainty” of British involvement in a string of recent Ukrainian sabotage strikes against its internal infrastructure.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed the United Kingdom government for putting Ukraine up to what he called terrorist attacks — sabotage against infrastructure that supplies and enables Russia’s invasion, Kyiv argues — against the nation’s railway networks.
Claiming Ukraine couldn’t have undertaken such sophisticated strikes alone, Russia’s top diplomat said this week: “These threats are rather serious. It is obvious that this is being carried out by the Ukrainian side, but it would have been powerless without help by the British. However, who knows, maybe U.S. special services are also involved out of habit but there is 100% certainty that the British are”.
Lavrov claimed the Ukrainians only targeted civilian infrastructure while Russia — he asserted — only hit military sites. Ukraine strongly refutes these allegations.
Russia apparently harbours a deep resentment against the United Kingdom, which it blames for various manifestations of “Russophobia” on the world stage. Whether this is at work in this case, or if Russia finds itself feeling the need to shift blame away from the United States for Ukrainian attacks as it works to stay on President Trump’s good side during negotiations is unclear.
Lavrov’s comments come after days of major Ukrainian strikes against Russian infrastructure, often deep inside its national territory. An audacious plot to smuggle large quantities of suicide drones into Russia inside converted shipping containers grabbed headlines worldwide after they were delivered locations adjacent to strategic air bases across the country and activated.
Already inside the air defences of those bases, the drones were apparently free to launch suicide-strikes with explosives against Russian bombers and other strategic aircraft parked on the tarmac. Ukraine claimed to have destroyed 40 aircraft, Russia denied this, and American analysis reportedly stated satellite imagery showing 20 planes hit and 10 definitely destroyed.
Less well covered globally but a matter of constant protest by the Russian government were separate alleged strikes the same weekend against Russia’s railway network to which Lavrov referred. Blasts collapsed two bridges crossing railway lines in the paths of oncoming trains causing major crashes, killing at least seven people and injuring many dozens more.
Russia has decried these strikes as “terrorism”. Ukraine has not yet officially claimed the attack, but has asserted its responsibility over several other commando and saboteur attacks against Russia’s railway network over the course of the war.
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