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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Ryan Fahey

Vladimir Putin ally in chilling threat to kidnap NATO defence minister in Ukraine

A Russian lawmaker and ally of Vladimir Putin has suggested kidnapping NATO's defence minister in Ukraine.

Senior politician Oleg Morozov was elected to Russia 's state Duma in 1993 and became a member of the dominant United Russia party.

He said the NATO official should be abducted and transported to be interrogated about which "orders" the West has given to Kyiv.

Morozov said the supply of Western arms to Ukraine posed a direct threat to Russia and might require Moscow to review its military aims.

"You know, perhaps it is a fantastical plot that I have brewing ... that in the near future, at some stage, a war minister of some NATO country will go by train to Kyiv to talk with (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky," Morozov told the "60 Minutes" talk show on Rossiya-1 state TV late on Monday.

"But he would not get there. And would wake up somewhere in Moscow," Morozov said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (REUTERS)

"You mean we abduct them?" TV host Olga Skabeyeva, one of the most pro-Kremlin journalists on television, asked with a smile.

"Yes. And then we would sort out who gave which order for what, who is responsible for what exactly," Morozov said.

"It is not such a mythical picture ... There are new rules in the world now. Let all those war ministers gathering in Kyiv think a little about what it would be like to wake up in Moscow."

Neither Morozov nor Skabeyeva could be reached for comment.

Morozov told Russian television host Olga Skabeyeva (pictured) of his plot (Rossiya 1 / east2west news)

A succession of Western politicians have visited Kyiv to show solidarity with Ukraine - including U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who travelled there in April with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

President Vladimir Putin casts the 97-day-old war as a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and halt what he sees as the persecution of Russian-speakers by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists.

He also accuses the United States of using Ukraine to threaten Russia through NATO enlargement.

Morozov said the supply of Western arms to Ukraine posed a direct threat to Russia (Alamy Stock Photo)

Ukraine and its Western backers say Russia is waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state which is fighting for its existence.

Russia has repeatedly warned the West that the supply of advanced arms to Ukraine risks escalating the war. Ukraine has called for the West to send more long-range weapons.

Yesterday a top Kremlin security official promised Moscow will "fulfill threats" of a missile attack if provoked

He's an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin (via REUTERS)

.

Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said Washington's decision not to send Ukraine rocket systems capable of striking Russian targets was "reasonable".

Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia would have returned fire against Biden's "criminal decisions" at targets "not in Kiev at all".

He said: "Biden said that the US will not supply Ukraine with missile systems capable of attacking Russia. Reasonable.

"Otherwise, when attacking our cities, the Russian Armed Forces would fulfil their threat and strike at the centres of these criminal decisions. Some of them are not in Kiev at all. What's next, there's no need to explain..."

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