President Vladimir Putin said that Russia could transfer modern missile weapons to certain regions of the world from where one could use those weapons to strike sensitive targets in the countries that supply weapons to Ukraine.
Ukraine's strikes on Russian territory are "close to aggression,” President Vladimir Putin said when asked whether Ukraine's strikes with the use of Western precision weapons on Russian territory could be regarded as acts of aggression.
"This requires more research. But it's close to that. We are analyzing this. After all, what are we talking about in this case is that those who supply these weapons believe that they are not at war with us, but I said, including in Pyongyang, that we then reserve the right to supply weapons to other regions of the world bearing in mind our agreements with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and I do not exclude this,” Putin said on June 20 following his visit to Vietnam.
According to him, Western countries supply weapons to Ukraine and say that they do not control anything that happens afterwards.
"We can also say that we delivered something to someone, and then we don't control anything,” Putin said.
On June 5, Putin said that Moscow could supply its weapons to regions of the world from where one could use Russian weapons to strike targets in the countries that supply weapons to Kyiv.
"If someone considers it possible to supply such weapons to the combat zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, then why don't we have the right to supply our weapons of the same class to those regions of the world from where attacks will be carried out on sensitive targets of the countries that do this to Russia?” Putin noted.
Putin's announcement gave rise to numerous discussions in the expert community. Many started wondering where exactly Russia could send its weapons and what targets in which countries those weapons could be aimed at.
Thus, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev noted that these could be the countries that consider the United States their enemies. Medvedev noted that the list of the countries was not announced deliberately.
"I think that it goes about, first of all, missiles of most popular classes - air defense systems, MANPADS, anti-ship missiles, operational-tactical missiles with the exception of intercontinental ones, as well as anti-tank systems," the founder and chief of Operational Line analytical project told Pravda.Ru.
Member of the Human Rights Council Marina Akhmedova said that Russia was waiting for NATO's decision to let Ukraine strike deep into "old" Russian territories.
"Many seriously believed that the response would be terrifying. Apparently, NATO countries need personal experience of suffering for their spiritual development. America has not had it for a long time,” Marina Akhmedova said.
It is worthy of note that Putin is always careful when it comes to the choice of words. In his above-mentioned statement, he spoke of 'regions' rather than 'countries'. This considerably expands the geography of possible supplies - it could be Yemen, Iraq, unrecognized states in post-Soviet space, etc.
The following regions could be among the options: