Russia’s deputy envoy to the United Nations (UN) has advised Western leaders to see a doctor for their “paranoia” that Russia might stage an invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
“I think they need to have a good doctor; I recommend them to do it, specialist on such paranoia cases,” said Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy in a press briefing at UN headquarters in New York, rejecting the notion that his country planned to invade Ukraine.
“Our troops are on our territory, (they) represent (a) threat to no one,” he further reiterated when asked about the size of Russian troops along its long border with Ukraine as part of a military drill with its ally Belarus. “I don’t know about the numbers, because there are a lot of speculations about it.”
“I think the training with Belarus would be over in one week’s time. For the rest, I don’t know,” Polyanskiy then emphasized.
The Kremlin has condemned weeks-long US claims about a looming Russian invasion of Ukraine as “baseless hysteria”.
Moscow announced a partial pullback of forces from near Ukraine on Tuesday.
Russia’s defense ministry on Wednesday published video showing a column of tanks and military vehicles leaving Crimea across a railway bridge after drills, adding that some troops will also return to their permanent bases.
West ‘destroyed without a single shot being fired:’ Russia
The development also came as Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova insisted that the US-led Western governments have been “destroyed without a single shot being fired.”
“February 15, 2022 will go into history as the day Western war propaganda failed. They have been disgraced and destroyed without a single shot being fired,” she wrote in a Telegram post on Tuesday.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced earlier that units of Russia’s Western and Southern Military Districts were heading back to their bases by rail and by truck at the conclusion of their training.
The Russian ruble has also gained against the dollar and euro in response to the news from the Russian military, press reports noted.
Source: Agencies (edited by Al-Manar English Website)
