West using Ukraine as ‘battering ram’ against Russia – Shoigu

The US has completely subjugated its Western allies, focusing all their political and military resources on preserving its slipping global dominance by any means necessary, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the 10th Xiangshan Security Forum in China.

Shoigu arrived in Beijing on Monday on a working visit, where he delivered a keynote address at a plenary session on the ‘Responsibility of large states and cooperation in the field of global security’.

According to the defense minister, Washington has been undermining and destroying the foundations of international security in its quest for overwhelming geopolitical and military-strategic superiority. The US-led NATO bloc has for years ignored Russia’s legitimate security interests, stubbornly pursuing expansion and eventually forcing Russia to implement “countermeasures” in Ukraine.

“In response, the West openly took a course on inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia in the hybrid war unleashed against us. Ukraine was cynically chosen as a battering ram, and assigned the role of merely expendable material,” Shoigu stated.

However, despite Western arms and support, Kiev’s much-touted counteroffensive has failed, Shoigu said, noting that Ukraine lost “over 90,000 troops, some 600 tanks and almost 1,900 armored vehicles” since June 4 alone. The Russian armed forces will continue to methodically and steadily carry out their tasks, while ensuring the safety of civilians, he added. 

“Modern cataclysms in international relations are directly related to the opposition of individual states to the inevitable strengthening of the multipolar world,” the defense chief said. 

“Countries that oppose Western neocolonial dictatorship and defend the principles of equality, polycentricity and indivisible security are subject to fierce pressure, including attempts at political and economic strangulation.” 

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