21 November 2022, Monday, 15:45 340

Putin Is Indifferent To Any External Pressure - Italian Defense Ministry

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto believes that Russian President Putin is indifferent to any external pressure and his goal now is to psychologically weaken the civilian population not only of Ukraine, but also of the EU countries.

He stated this in an interview with the Il Foglio newspaper, European Pravda writes.

"What Putin did the other day, these carpet bombings of Ukraine during the G20 summit, demonstrate his incapacity for this war," Crosetto said, mentioning that the Russian Federation has used such a method not for the first time. He reminded that in April, Putin thought carefully before dropping missiles on Kyiv during the visit of the UN Secretary General.

According to Crosetto, in such a boorish way, Putin wants to make it clear that without him at the negotiating table, a solution will never be found.

"Putin is now indifferent to any external pressure. This is his line. His personally," said Crosetto.

According to him, Putin has far fewer internal disagreements than any Western head of government.

"After all, autocracies do not provide for this. But there is no doubt that in his choice, Putin demonstrates the stubbornness of a person who is convinced that he has gone too far to agree to turn back, to back down from his intentions even now, when it would seem that they are far away," said the minister, recalling the huge losses of the Russian Federation in the war.

That is why, according to Crosetto, Putin wants to use the winter and gives orders for targeted attacks on gas pipelines and power lines.

"His goal now is also the psychological weakening of the civilian population. And not only the Ukrainian one. He wants to test the stability of European public opinion by starting the process of mass flight from Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv. When 7, maybe even 10 million Ukrainians were left without heat and light, on the eve of the season, when in those regions there are even 25 degrees of frost, there will be at least hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees who will seek refuge in Europe," the minister said.

"Perhaps, in the Kremlin," added Crosetto, "there are those who are betting that this will weaken Western support for Zelenskyy's work."

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Macron called on Asian countries to join the pressure on Russia.