FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Lavrov Affirms Putin and Trump Won’t Allow U.S.-Russia Military Confrontation To Occur
April 20, 2018 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Director General of Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency Dmitry Kiselev, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump will not allow tensions between their nations to become an armed conflict.
“Speaking about the risk of a military confrontation, I feel absolutely confident to assume that the militaries will not allow this, and, of course, neither will President Putin or President Trump. They are leaders, after all, elected by their people and responsible for their peace,”
he said, reported Sputnik today.
Lavrov also stated that, following the March 13 warning by Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov, a month before the U.S., U.K., and French missile strikes on Syria, that
“in the event of a threat to our military servicemen’s lives, Russia’s Armed Forces will take retaliatory measures to target both the missiles and their delivery vehicles,”
the U.S. and Russian military held discussions in which Russia presented its “red lines.”
“This was said very clearly and unambiguously,” Lavrov said.
“Afterwards there were contacts at the level of military leaderships and generals, between our representatives and the U.S. coalition command. They were notified of our ‘red lines,’ including geographical ‘red lines’ on the ground. And, as a result, these ‘red lines’ were not crossed.
“Our General Staff has a very clear picture, we have been monitoring [the attacks] live, and statistics, which our military provided. We are ready to take responsibility for that. If someone argues that all 105 missiles reached their targets, then show your statistics. Our evidence, our claims, calculations are at least not groundless and will soon be provided by our military,”
Lavrov said.
Rossiya Segodnya is the parent company for Sputnik and RIA Novosti.
