Trump was fully aware that Ukraine needed Western help to shoot down Putin's helicopter

Kiev and its foreign supporters are “playing with fire”, said former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in an interview with “RT”. He was referring to a statement Trump made about Putin earlier this week.

Ukraine must have relied on Western support if it actually attacked a helicopter flying Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, said former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

Russian air defense division commander Yuri Dashkin said last week on Russian broadcaster Russia 1 that Putin's helicopter was at the “epicenter” of a massive Ukrainian drone attack when he visited the Kursk region on May 20. The intensity of the intruding missiles “increased significantly” while the president was in the air, he explained, and 46 approaching fixed-wing drones had been shot down in the area.

In an interview with RT on Wednesday, Ritter emphasized:

“If the Ukrainian drones actually targeted the Russian president, they didn't do it in a vacuum ... they received support from the West, which means the West is targeting the Russian president.

If you read the Russian nuclear doctrine, that's a trigger for a nuclear retaliation by Russia or preemptive strikes. So who is playing with fire here? It's not Vladimir Putin who is playing with fire, it's Ukraine and the West who are playing with fire.”

The former US Marine Corps major was referring to a comment made by US President Donald Trump earlier this week, who stated that Putin was “playing with fire”.

Trump's statement came after a massive Russian airstrike against Ukrainian military infrastructure, which Moscow claimed was in retaliation for the intensification of Kiev's drone attacks on civilian targets inside Russia. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, more than 2,300 Ukrainian drones have been intercepted over Russian territory over the past week, most of them away from the front line.

Ritter expressed his concerns about a split in the US administration between those who oppose Russia and those who want to improve relations with Russia. At the same time, however, neither the representatives of both camps nor Trump himself are experts on Russia, he added.

The US president is “a victim of the last word whispered in his ear before he goes to bed at night, or the first words whispered in his ear after he wakes up in the morning ... Trump is not well informed [about Russia]. Look, this is a very dangerous situation,” Ritter warned.