Putin: We will consider sending weapons to countries in conflict with the West, there is no difference between Biden and Trump

(Patria) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday criticized the delivery of long-range weapons from the West to Ukraine, claiming that Moscow could arm other countries with similar weapons to attack Western targets, AFP reported.

The comment, made at a press conference with foreign news agencies, came after several Western countries, including the United States, gave Ukraine permission to attack targets in Russia, which Moscow called a serious miscalculation.

"If anyone thinks it is possible to deliver such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and cause us problems, why don't we have the right to deliver weapons of the same class to parts of the world where strikes will be made on sensitive facilities of those (Western) countries?" Putin said.

"That is, the answer can be asymmetrical. We will think about it," he told reporters.

"Delivering weapons to a war zone is always bad. Even more so if those who deliver not only
deliver weapons but also control them. This is a very serious and very dangerous step," he said.

Putin singled out Germany, saying that when the first tanks supplied by Germany "appeared on Ukrainian soil, it caused a moral and ethical shock in Russia" due to the legacy of World War II. Referring to the German authorities, he said: "When they say that more missiles will hit targets on Russian territory, it definitely destroys Russian-German relations."

Putin reiterated that Russia "did not start the war against Ukraine," blaming the pro-Western revolution of 2014 for it.

"Everyone thinks that Russia started the war in Ukraine. I want to emphasize that no one in the West, in Europe, wants to remember how this tragedy began," Putin said.

He refused to give the number of Russian losses on the battlefield, saying only that Ukrainian losses were five times higher.

"I can tell you that as a rule, no one talks about it," Putin said. "If we are talking about irrecoverable losses, the ratio is one to five," he said.

The issue of military casualties is sensitive in Russia, where any criticism of the conflict is banned, and a maximum sentence of fifteen years in prison is threatened for "spreading false information" about the army.

On the Bosnian-French journalist, Biden and Trump

Asked about the murder of AFP video journalist Arman Soldin in Ukraine last year, likely as a result of Russian missile fire, Putin said Moscow was ready to help with the investigation.

"We will do everything in our power," he said. "We are ready for this work. I don't know how it could be done in practice, since this person died in a war zone."

Asked what an electoral victory for Donald Trump or Joe Biden would mean for US-Russian relations, he shrugged.

"Basically, there is no difference," he said.

He called Trump's recent business fraud convictions politically motivated, claiming his conviction "burned" the idea that Washington was a leading democratic state.

"It is obvious to the whole world that the prosecution of Trump... is simply the use of the judicial system during an internal political struggle," Putin said.

"Their supposed leadership in the sphere of democracy is burning to the ground," the Russian leader added.