EU’s tussle with Russia is ‘at behest of US’ – Kremlin

Aggressive anti-Russia policies will ultimately cost European countries dearly, Dmitry Peskov has warned

The EU will pay a high price for confronting Russia on the orders of Washington, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said.

During an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin that aired on Russia 1 channel on Sunday, Peskov was asked to comment on the escalatory rhetoric recently coming from the West, including discussions about allowing Ukraine to use foreign weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, as well as the verbal backing by Washington and Brussels of Kiev forces’ ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region.

Peskov recalled the statement made by EU foreign policy commissioner Josep Borrell, who said mid-August that Ukraine had the bloc’s “full support” for its Kursk offensive. Borrell is a diplomat but he “acts like a defense minister and a hawk,” the press secretary said in the interview.

“The European countries, led by the US, are in a confrontational ecstasy. They are playing the role assigned to them by Washington in this whole story, to the detriment of their own interests and the wallets of their taxpayers,” the spokesman emphasized, referring to over $121 billion in financial and military aid provided by the EU to Kiev since the escalation with Moscow in February 2022.

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The involvement in the conflict will “have profound consequences for [the EU]. It is inevitable and, over the coming decade, we will witness these negative consequences,” he told Russia 1.

But if the West goes too far in its standoff with Russia over Ukraine, “knowing the determination of our president [Vladimir Putin], knowing the potential of our country, which has turned out to be even greater than we expected, as evidenced by the pace of economic development and the military mobilization of our economy, I have no doubt that, if necessary, everything will be done to protect our interests,” Peskov said.

The response by Moscow in this case would be “effective and one that is demanded by our national interests,” he added, without revealing any further details.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has resumed his calls for the country’s Western backers to allow long-range strikes on Russian territory during Kiev’s ongoing incursion into Kursk Region. However, he has not yet received approval.

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Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukraine has lost more than 8,500 troops and several hundred units of military equipment, including 80 tanks and 69 armored personnel carriers, since the start of its attack on internationally recognized Russian territory on August 6. “The operation to destroy the Ukrainian unit Armed Forces formations continues” in Kursk Region, the ministry stressed.