‘Putin must think we were born yesterday’
VLADIMIR Putin “must think we were born yesterday” if he thinks Britain believes his troops are pulling out of Kyiv, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace declared last night.
The despot’s henchmen suggested he would “fundamentally cut back” military movements around the Ukrainian capital to “build trust” in peace talks.
Meanwhile, Mr Wallace — speaking from Bardufoss, Norway, as Britain prepared to deploy planes to track Putin’s Arctic submarines — told The Sun: “Russia must think we were born yesterday. Putin wants to crush Ukraine. It’s what he’s said. He is having to face the reality that he has been unsuccessful.
“I think the Russians are looking for an off ramp, but they’re trying to package their position of weakness as a position of strength.
“Judge Russia on its actions, not words, because there’s a big gulf between the two.”
He confirmed that Britain has donated “high velocity missiles” which are now operational in the battlefield.
And following the success of weapons such as the NLAW rocket on Russian armour, he hinted Britain may not look to buy more tanks as they have proved vulnerable. He added: “There are lessons from this war — very big, different lessons about whether we’ve got our balance of investments in the right place.
“If you look at Russian armour, over 2,000 have been destroyed in Ukraine. That’s a lot of armour taken by handheld weapons systems.”
