Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke via phone with his counterparts in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey about the worsening war in Ukraine.
On October 23, the Russian Federation’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the Russian Defense Ministry said in phone calls with Sebastien Lecornu of France, Ben Wallace of the United Kingdom, and Hulusi Akar of Turkey. Sergei Shoigu of the Russian Parliament spoke that “the situation is rapidly deteriorating” in Ukraine.
Shoigu further asserted that Kiev intends to intensify the conflict with the support of its Western partners.
The Ministry of Defense later stated that Mr. Wallace had disagreed with Mr. Shoigu’s remarks and emphasised that such claims “should not be used as a justification for a broader escalation.”
Shoigu spoke on the phone for the second time in three days on the same day with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Austin reportedly informed Shoigu that the US side “rejects all explanations for Russia’s intensifying actions” in the neighbouring country’s war, according to a Pentagon statement on the phone.
Kiev is accused of having plans to use “dirty bombs.”
According to RT, the Russian Defense Minister claimed that Ukraine was planning to deploy “dirty bombs,” which are conventional explosives that have been tainted with radioactive materials, to carry out a phoney strike to blame Moscow forces, but did not provide any supporting evidence.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has categorically refuted the accusation. On October 23, in a video message, Kiev’s leader urged the international community to respond “in the toughest way possible” if Russia took further action to escalate the conflict. He expressed his confidence that “everyone understands who is the source of everything imaginable in this conflict.”
