Pressed on purchase of Iranian drones, Anatoly Viktorov says Moscow not ‘playing against Israel’ and takes its ‘legitimate security concerns’ into account
By TOI STAFF27 October 2022, 11:43 pm
Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov on Thursday sought to calm growing Israeli concerns of Moscow’s cooperation with Tehran following the recent purchase and deployment of Iranian drones against Ukraine.
“Russia is not playing against Israel and I would like to confirm that we fully and totally are taking into account the legitimate security concerns of Israel,” Viktorov responded when asked about the drone purchases during an interview with Kan news.
Both Russia and Iran have denied the deployment of Iranian drones in Ukraine. But Israel, the US, and Ukraine have all said there is strong evidence of their use in numerous “suicide” bombing attacks.
The Russian envoy was also pressed as to whether Israel should be concerned that Moscow will assist Iran in obtaining a nuclear weapon as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently suggested.
Viktorov dismissed the charge, claiming that Zelensky “is saying many ridiculous things.”
He also suggested that the Ukrainian leader was intensifying his pressure on Israel to provide assistance in the lead-up to the Knesset elections next week, “which [constitutes] interfering in [Israel’s] internal affairs.”
Viktorov characterized Israeli-Russian ties as “friendly” but warned that a decision by Israel to arm Ukraine would be considered “unfriendly” by Moscow.
<
>
“Any serious moves which will not take into account the national interest of our country could not just affect but even destroy this spirit of relations between our countries,” he added.
Israel has thus far rebuffed Ukrainian requests for weapons, not wanting to burn its ties with Russia, which controls the Syrian skies in which the IDF operates to target Iranian militias below.
Viktorov indicated that Israel updates Russia ahead of the announcement of new policies regarding the war in Ukraine, but declined to elaborate further.
Asked about Moscow’s effort to shutter the Jewish Agency in Russia, Viktorov called them “a pure legal issue,” without elaborating.
He dismissed a question regarding the safety of Russia’s Jewish citizens, saying, “there are no reasons for Jewish citizens of the Russian Federation to be afraid of anything. There is no rise in antisemitism. There are not limits in their rights.”
Earlier Thursday, former chief rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt called on Russian Jews to flee the country after a top Russian defense official assailed the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement as a supremacist cult.
In an article for the government-owned Argumenty i Fakty weekly newspaper calling for the “desatanization” of Ukraine, assistant secretary of the Russian Security Council Aleksey Pavlov had claimed that the country was home to hundreds of neo-pagan cults, including the Chabad-Lubavitch sect.
Russia’s National Security Council reportedly sought to distance itself from the article, saying it went out without its knowledge and was not representative of official policy in Moscow.
Hi, Peloni
I’ll post this, then go get my “beauty rest”.
I don’t think you get my point at all. Putin is trying to somehow convince a skeptical world that he is innocent of shedding all that blood. Well, let him go on with this tomfoolery. Nobody will be convinced, and meanwhile, tens of thousands more will die. Even if he were 100% justified in his aggression, the result would be the same; because he’s playing with words, instead of addressing the problem.
In the end, the West will win; and Putin should know this. His gambit has failed; and in a protracted battle, he cannot replenish his losses at the rate the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the rest can; so he will lose unless he can find a diplomatic solution. That’s just the way things ARE; and nobody gives a rat’s behind, who’s right and who’s wrong.
The Ukraine War is a bloody distraction from the real conflict on earth, which is God’s people vs. the Devil. Putin does NOT represent the “forces of Good”, and neither do Biden and his controllers. That war is going on in the hearts of men, who are making their individual choices to trust in God or to trust in Man (whether it be Biden, Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, whoever). Call it the “T” War, the “Woke” War, whatever you please. It’s THAT war that aims to destroy humanity and the world. These other little wars of Iranians against Israel, Russia against NATO, China against Japan, etc., even if they go nuclear, pale in importance by comparison. Because of this, I’m completely unimpressed by either Putin, Zelenskyy or any of the other temporary dukes and princes of the world.
If you want a short-term prediction, it’s this: There will be no genuine peace talks until after the US, Israeli, British, Brazilian, etc. elections are settled. If Russia pulls its troops back, it will probably be proclaimed as a “goodwill gesture”, at the same time that it’s actually the result of political infighting in Russia itself. Whether Donbass, Kherson or Crimea fall on one side or another of the truce lines that will inevitably be drawn, makes little difference. Both sides will commit atrocities, populations will be relocated, and eventually, marriages will resume, crops will be planted and life will go on.
@Michael
1.
The war physically began in June 2014, or May if the Odessa Massacre is accepted as it’s initiation, or February if the Maidan Coup is better preferred. Regardless, it well predated the Russian involvement. Russia only ignored, beyond diplomatic reproaches, the slaughter taking place on its borders in the intervening 8yrs prior to acting, and only acted after multiple threats of war against Russia were made by the green T-shirt goblin in Kiev and more importantly, his threat of regaining nuclear weapons with which to attack Russia. Ukraine already had the means of making a dirty bomb and innumerable biolabs filled with biological pathogens at its disposal. So, should Russia have ignored these threats while a NATO army was massing on its border complete with regiments comprised and trained with Nazi desires of murdering as many Russians as possible, be it in Ukraine or Russia? As I have noted elsewhere, not every nation is so willing to ignore existential threats as is Israel.
2.
These were far less costly? To whom was it less costly? To Serbia? To Libya? I think not. Do you really claim that after setting such acts of precedence as these, which led to the legal standards of international law to be re-imagined ex post facto, we should now re-re-imagine the legal standards of international law simply because it suits the West to do so? Is this not the very charge which Russia has made against the West, using international law to legitimise whatever the West deems of interest to themselves while still holding others such as Russia to the previous standards of international norms?
These wars of NATO conquest set the bar of legitimate actions by the West, but in truth they simply want to believe that international laws do not apply to the West, but are meant to hold other nations, such as Russia, to a higher standard than, say, the US. More specifically, the reason these wars were ”FAR less costly” was due to the fact that they were on the order of Cortez taking on Montezuma. The collection of the military forces which had been designed to take on the entire Red Army hosted an event of shooting Serbians in a barrel as it were, and were quite disturbed that it took 78 days to break the impudent resolve of these well over-matched victims of Western aggression.
These “other issues” took place over the period of three decades, so there is no need to “address” them as they have been addressed already. They are in fact history and have been used to set a new standard of precedence related to both military action of great powers and the international law which guides them. Given the fact that the West see their position less Unipolared at the moment has them wishing they had not had so much fun shooting those Serbs in a barrel twenty years ago, and, in accordance with your own desires, would have us believe that given the fact that these crimes, which weren’t criminal over the past 3 decades, should now be once again assigned the status of criminality, as it suits the West to ignore their own guilt of the very crimes which they now find it useful to charge against Russia. Is there any greater claim of legal/international/military hypocrisy possible? I think not.
3.
Read the speech again. This is not what he said. He said if these values instilled in the “culture war” are of interest to the West, they should be free to practice them, but these unorthodox values will not be forced upon others such as Russia.
Sadly, I don’t believe that this is actually true. I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I believe the Reps will go right on signing checks for Ukraine, not because they care a hoot more or less about Ukraine than do the Dems, but because it is a money laundering gambit and the Reps are just as interested in having a cut of the cake as do the Dems. The only way I believe this might be avoided is if Trump were to become Speaker, and I do not believe that this is in the cards, unfortunately.
@Michael
This is quite inaccurate. Should Putin pull his troops out of those territories, the “cleansing” operations which took place around Kiev in April and that which took place in Kherson last month, would be expanded across the Dombass.
You think this is a war of conquest, but if that were accurately portrayed, Russia would never have entertained any negotiations, particularly while not employing the full effect of the Russian military against Ukraine. Russia has never stopped entertaining serious negotiations, and only after the Ukrainian ruse during the Istanbul negotiations did they accept that negotiations without the Western powers, who vetoed the Istanbul agreement, were meaningless. At that time, Russia was completely willing to do just as you stated, return to the pre-war borderline, and led to the cleansing effort announced by the Ukrainian govt after the Russian withdrawal from the areas from which they withdrew. That offer is now permanently removed from the realm of possibilities, and, as I have suggested, rightfully so given the Ukrainian determination to cleanse any recovered lands of suspected collaberators following Russia’s proposed withdrawal. Doing so would not result in the peace you propose, but rather a return once again to the slaughter of a local minority by a NATO armed, NATO trained, and NATO funded military, complete with neoNazi regiments. In short, what you call for is not peace but a continuation of the slaughter of these people.
Peloni,
Of course, there are multiple sides to this conflict. The most important, in my opinion, is:
1. Russia physically started a war, which has so far killed tens of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians. This is an issue which must be directly addressed.
2. Putin has tried to justify his actions, by pointing at some FAR less costly moves by the Ukraine and NATO in recent years. This obfuscation must NOT be addressed in connection of Putin’s need to end his blatant actions. Once Putin has corrected what he has done, these other issues can be addressed.
3. In his 21 October speech, Putin tried to connect his purely hegemonic actions with the “culture war”, aka the “T (Transgender)” War being waged across the planet. This is a disingenuous move, and I do not buy it.
I strongly suspect that Biden (or his controllers) engineered and promoted this war, in order to remedy his dismal showing in the polls. If so, he has failed: Americans are going to the polls already in early voting, and Biden’s allies will probably suffer a disastrous defeat. Meanwhile, neither Republicans, Independents nor Democrats have much stomach for getting involved in the Ukraine. The solution to the American end of this conflict, therefore, hardly seems to depend on Putin at all; it is in the hands of the American voters.
— https://internationalbanker.com/news/russia-and-iran-a-budding-friendship-of-convenience/
— https://internationalbanker.com/news/russia-and-iran-a-budding-friendship-of-convenience/
Putin’s “Multipolar World” is essentially an anti-American “New World Order”, whose interests are diametrically opposed to the Western counterpart represented by NATO and other existing alliances — alliances which, until now, Russia has partnered with. His recent speech is a formalization of rebellion, not an expression of loyalty.
Peloni,
“Loyalty” that can be turned on and off at the drop of a hat is not loyalty. Putin is allied with the Chinese and Iranians, through formal agreements; and if he is “loyal”, he will honor his agreements with those countries at the expense of US allies such as Israel.
Putin knows how to pursue peace in Ukraine: pull out his troops who have unlawfully attacked it.
I would suggest that Putin is loyal to Russia and Russian interests, and Israel, the US and the European nations, each under the yoke of the EU rule, should each consider returning to such standards of national loyalty, so as to benefit the interests of their respective nations and the interests of their respective peoples. Russia does not owe Iran, China, India nor Pakistan more support than that which provides a benefit to the Russian people.
Nations should pursue national interests. It is not only sensible, it is the responsible and healthy action of national leadership to do nothing less than this. This simple reality seems to have been trained out of the Western leadership in recent years. Best that they pull out some old training manual from years gone by and recollect on the lack of wisdom and the excess of folly associated with pursuing goals which benefit the interests and goals of others while deleteriously affecting the livelihood and future of their own people. Meanwhile, Putin might offer a Masterclass on the subject.
Matt.6
[24] No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Is Putin loyal to Iran? to China? to India? to Pakistan? These are all members of the SCC. All these countries consistently vote against Israel in the UN. If he IS loyal to them, AND to Israel, then a better question would be,
“Is Putin loyal to ANYONE?”
(Psst… Trust me… I’m KGB…)