New Delhi: A Russian prankster duo have got former US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper to reveal that he believes Ukrainians were doing the job US was ‘shying away’ from.
The duo, which goes by the names Vovan and Lexus, tricked Esper to blurt out his views by impersonating the former president of Ukraine Pyotr Proroshenko.
Esper, thinking that he was speaking to Poroshenko, candidly said, “Brave Ukrainian people are doing the dirty work of what we never wanted to do here in the United States, which is why we should continue to support you with everything we can, whether it’s munitions or arms or intelligence,” according a Russia Today report.
The former Pentagon top official, who served under the Trump administration, proposed that Ukraine ups it’s strikes on Russian targets of value like the warehouses and logistics centers, even if they were within the Russian territory.
Ukraine has so far in the main restricted its strikes on Russian military targets in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine only. It hasn’t scaled up the attacks to hit targets inside Russia, providing it with an off-limits sanctuary.
“Ukraine had a sovereign right to conduct strikes on any targets it sees fit, including within Russia,” he was quoted to have said in the RT report, explaining that an adversary with an off-limits “sanctuary” has an advantage.
However, he said that he believes Kyiv would not divert from the strategic approach it has followed so far to upset NATO or provide Russia’s President Vladimir Putin a reason to make people rally around him.
Last week Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs, said that US had “objections” to Ukraine attacking targets in Crimea – a part of Ukraine that Russia annexed in 2014 and claims as its sovereign territory.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinked had, in December, said that Washington “neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia.”
Not the first Western official to be tricked
Esper is not the only Western official to have fallen to Pransksters’ tricks. Just earlier this month US national security advisor John Bolton in a similar phone call had said that efforts for negotiations with Russia over Ukraine needed to be stopped.
“Stop efforts by whether it’s the French or the Germans or whoever it might be to try negotiating with the Russians,” he said.
YouTube banned their channel in March 2022, after they leaked a call in which British defence chief Ben Wallace disclosed information about arms deliveries to Ukraine.
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