Literally a day after Volodymyr Zelenskyi admitted that Kyiv forces had first used US-supplied ATACMS missiles against Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a veiled threat to his American counterpart, Joe Biden, inviting him for “pancakes and a cup of tea.” ”, – notes The Telegraph.

While in Beijing, Vladimir Putin extended an apparently threatening invitation to Joe Biden to visit Moscow for a cup of tea on Wednesday.

The head of the Kremlin invited Biden to tea after a journalist asked him how he would comment on the US president’s statement that Russia had already lost the war in Ukraine.

“If Russia lost the war, why is (the US) providing ATACMS?” Putin asked after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“Take them back like all other weapons. He (Biden) can sit down, eat pancakes and visit us for tea.”

Mysterious deaths of Putin critics

Kremlin critics, journalists and fugitive spies have died under suspicious circumstances during Putin’s 23-year presidency.

Russian intelligence officials have turned political poisoning into an art form, The Guardian reports. It is believed that Soviet scientists worked for decades on the production of poisons without color and odor. According to a 1954 interview with a KGB agent, the poison was tested on prisoners who were still alive.

Russia’s covert methods first drew international attention in the case of Oleksandr Litvinenko, a Putin opponent who died of polonium-219 poisoning in London in 2006. Shortly before his death, Lytvynenko told reporters that the FSB (the new Russian security service) still operated Soviet-era poison laboratories. A British investigation later concluded that Litvinenko was killed by Russian agents, probably with Putin’s permission.

More than a decade later, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence agent turned double agent in the UK, survived poisoning with a paralyzing agent called “novococcus” in Salisbury. Novociok means “newcomer” and refers to a group of paralyzing agents manufactured in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s to evade international restrictions on chemical weapons.

Shortly after the attempt to kill Skripal, which later ended in the death of British woman Dawn Sturges, who unknowingly doused her wrists with novochok. Putin called the double agent a “traitor” and a “scoundrel.” Shortly thereafter, in another interview, Putin said he could forgive anything but “treason.”

Navalny, poisoned himself with novotsik

Moscow also has a reputation for persecuting the opposition.

In August 2020, oppositionist Oleksii Navalny, who is currently in prison, became ill while flying from Siberia to Moscow. Later, Navalny was taken to Germany for treatment, where doctors determined that he had been poisoned by novococcus.

An investigation by the investigative group Bellingcat identified at least eight FSB agents who were allegedly behind the poisoning of Navalny. One of the suspected agents admitted his involvement in the conspiracy during a telephone conversation with the opposition leader.

Russian security services have also reportedly poisoned other, lesser-known Russians, such as writer Dmytro Bykov and Petro Verzilov, the unofficial spokesman for the punk band Pussy Riot, who was later sent to Germany for treatment shortly after he fell ill.

An investigation by the independent news portal Insider recently revealed that three Russian journalists known for their anti-Kremlin stance may have been poisoned in other countries, such as Germany and Georgia.

“Error”

On Tuesday, Washington announced that it had secretly supplied Ukrainian forces with ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles with a range of 100 miles (165 km) so they could bomb Russian bases from behind.

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the first successful use of this weapon on Tuesday. Its special forces claimed responsibility for devastating strikes on Russian airfields in the occupied territory on the same day.

Vladimir Putin assessed that the delivery of these missiles, which Kiev has been demanding for months, will not change the course of the war, once again convinced that the so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive has cut its teeth into the Russian defense.

“The main thing is that (these missiles) will not radically change the situation on the contact line, it is impossible,” the Russian president said at a press conference in Beijing following the results of his visit to China. “Nothing good will happen for Ukraine. The agony will continue,” he added, assessing that Washington made a “mistake” in this way.