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The US and Russian defence chiefs spoke by telephone on June 25 for the first time in more than a year, and the two sides gave widely divergent accounts of the conversation.
The Pentagon said US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov discussed the importance of open lines of communication.
Mr Austin initiated the conversation, and it was the first such call since March 2023, Pentagon spokesman, Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, told reporters.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said Mr Belousov warned Mr Austin of the dangers of continued US arms supplies to Ukraine in its 28-month-old conflict with Russia.
“Belousov pointed to the danger of further escalating the situation through continued supplies of American weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its annexation of four of its regions and its slow advance through eastern Ukraine have plunged Moscow’s relations with Washington to their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
In the latest of a long series of allegations, Moscow last weekend said the US was responsible for a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula with five US-supplied missiles that killed four people.
Supplies of US weapons to Ukraine resumed in April 2024 with Congressional approval of a US$61 billion aid package. The US says it stands by Ukraine’s demands for Russian troops to leave Ukraine and for the country’s post-Soviet borders to be restored.
In Mr Austin’s last such call, with then Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, the former said he had pointed to risky behaviour by Russian fighter pilots that caused a US drone to crash in the Black Sea near Ukraine. REUTERS
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