Aug. 11—Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, reflecting on the combined but uneven evolving state of U.S.-Russian relations, said in an interview with Rossiya-1 Aug. 10, “some sprouts of common sense are appearing in the dialogue with the U.S., which have been sorely lacking in recent months and years.”
He, at the same time, discussed Russia’s recent decision to lift its self-imposed ban on deploying intermediate range missiles, ascribing the Russian change in policy to the need to respond to what “the Americans and their allies, especially the European warmongers, are undertaking.” In his interview with Rossiya-1, Ryabkov made it clear that besides the now-famous Oreshnik missile, Russia has developed other advanced missile technologies.
“Oreshnik—yes, but we have other [weapons]. We did not waste time…. I cannot dwell on what I am not supposed to, but, we have such weapons.” TASS news agency reported: “Commenting on the potential deployment of Russian weapons to new regions, Ryabkov noted, ‘It would be absolutely wrong, irresponsible of me to disclose concrete geographical locations.’ ‘We always have a lot of options on the table and we never exclude anything for us,’ he added.”
TASS then reminded some, and recounted for the first time for others, the wildly dangerous days of the Biden Administration and NATO’s deployment, via Ukraine, of long-range missile attacks on Russia last fall. “Russian President Vladimir Putin said on November 21 [2024] that the United States and its NATO allies had announced their approval of the use of long-range precision weapons. Following this announcement, Russian military sites in the Kursk and Bryansk regions were attacked with American and British missiles. In response, Russia used its newest intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, in a non-nuclear strike targeting Ukraine’s Yuzhmash defense plant in Dnepr (formerly known as Dnepropetrovsk). The Russian President warned that the West could bring upon itself heavy consequences, should its inflammatory policies prompt further escalation of the conflict.”
This—both the potential for sanity, and the present reality of a reckless escalation that could prove unstoppable past a certain point—is the true, “nuanced” circumstance of the Friday Aug. 15 Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.