14ymedio, Havana, 15 September 2022 — Russian television presenter Vladimir Soloviov, one of Vladimir Putin’s “unconditional” friends, considers it essential to form an “international coalition” of Russian allies to fight against Ukraine. Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Iran were some of the nations to which Soloviov alluded.
“I don’t understand why Americans, even if they’re fighting in Grenada, always improvise an international coalition,” he said on Wednesday in his program “Night with Vladimir,” alluding to the US military intervention on the small Caribbean island to reverse a coup d’état supported at that time by Cuba and the then-Soviet Union.
During the landing in Grenada, the Americans were backed by Barbados, Jamaica and other Caribbean nations.
“Why do we deny ourselves that pleasure?” he added, while assuring that the “allies” would be willing to send their troops to support Russia in a counteroffensive against Ukraine in Donetsk. “There are units in Syria very well trained by us, there are people in Africa who support us, there is Venezuela, there is Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran and North Korea,” said the man, whose program is broadcast by the state television station Russia-1.
Soloviov said that the “coalition” method was being practiced by Ukraine, which now has help and troops from other European countries and the United States.
“If volunteers from all over the world go and fight in Donetsk, why shouldn’t we give them the opportunity to organize and create an international body?” he said, before referring to the International Brigades made up of fighters from several countries, including Cuba, that supported the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War.
He added that “our Serbian brothers” are already in Donetsk anyway, so he saw no impediment to “people who want to take up arms” and join them.
Considered one of the main propagandists of Putin’s government, Soloviov is one of the people sanctioned by the European Union after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In his call for a coalition for Russia’s “allies,” the ideologue forgot to mention that Cuba, unlike North Korea, Belarus, Syria and Eritrea, didn’t vote against the UN resolution condemning Putin’s aggression, but only abstained.
In the face of the advance of the Ukranian forces from Kiev, which claim to have liberated over 5,000 square miles, 388 localities and 150,000 people since September 6 in the eastern region, Russian troops have hastily withdrawn from dozens of villages in eastern Ukraine, abandoning large quantities of military equipment on the ground.
According to data provided by the United States, the Russians have suffered 75,000 combat casualties in seven months. The war, described by Putin as a simple “military operation,” has not gone as the Kremlin expected, and there are more and more voices critical of the lack of preparation of the Russian Army.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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