Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says the United States and its Western allies risk triggering a global war if Washington continues to "provoke" the conflict in Ukraine and allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory.

His remarks to Reuters offer a rare insight into thinking in Putin's inner circle following a surprise Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region, to which the president has promised a "worthy" response but has not yet said what that will entail.

Chemezov, CEO of the Rostec corporation which supplies many of Russia's arms for the war, said Russia felt confident and had enough weapons more than two years into what the Kremlin calls its special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine.

He reiterated the Kremlin's position that the conflict is a battle between the West and Russia.

"In a situation where the West, led by the United States, provokes war, we must be ready," Chemezov said in written responses to an interview request. "The third year of the special operation is under way – Russia feels confident."

He said no one would provide a time frame for when the war might end, and accused the U.S. of stoking the conflict by supplying weapons to Kyiv and allowing strikes deep into Russia.

"The further it goes, the greater the risk that the world will be drawn into a global conflict. It looks strange, but Western countries do not seem to understand just how fraught this is for them."

The comments by Chemezov, a former KGB general who served with Putin in East Germany before the Soviet Union collapsed, were sent to Reuters after the incursion began.

Putin said last week Russian forces would eject Ukrainian troops from Russian sovereign territory but they remain inside Russia.

He said in June he could deploy conventional missiles within striking distance of the U.S. and its European allies if they let Ukraine strike deeper into Russia with long-range Western weapons.

Putin casts the conflict in Ukraine as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine.

The West, which has supplied Kyiv with large amounts of weapons, rejects Moscow's interpretation of the war and regards it as unprovoked land grab by Russia.

Moscow says the West was involved in planning for Ukraine's attack on the Kursk region. Western powers, which want to avoid direct military confrontation with Russia, have denied this and say Russia has stoked the war.

ECONOMIC WAR

Chemezov, 71, was placed under U.S. and European Union sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

He said it was a "myth" that there were empty shelves in Russian shops because of sanctions and increased defence spending.

"Go to any Russian hypermarket and see for yourself – everything is fine with 'butter'," he said. "Russia has enough "canon'. We have increased the production of weapons many times over."

Sanctions have destroyed supply chains, forcing Rostec to shift deadlines for the Yakovlev MC-21 airliner and to replace about 40 imported elements in the Superjet-100, but none of this is fatal for Russia or Rostec, he said.

Rostec's headcount will rise by tens of thousands this year, he said, describing the departure from the Russian market of Western companies such as Boeing and Airbus as an "opportunity" for Rostec for which wanted to say "thank you".

"We have passed the main stress. We managed to extract advantages from the situation and draw the necessary conclusions. One of them is: no more joint business based on trust with Western countries," Chemezov said.

Russia is the world's third largest arms exporter after the U.S. and France although its share of the global market fell in 2023 because of the war in Ukraine, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Chemezov said defence companies would continue to make a significant contribution to Russia's economy even after the conflict in Ukraine.

Weapons exports have declined, but there are signs of significant delayed demand from abroad, he said, partly due to the fact that Russian weapons had been proven on the battlefield in Ukraine.

"Our partners are sympathetic and ready to wait," Chemezov said, without naming them. "There is already a considerable queue on the 'waiting list'."

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Ukraine launches drone attack on Moscow

Russian Air Defense systems shot down 45 drones headed toward Moscow overnight, the mayor said.

The aerial attacks came as Ukrainian forces occupy a portion of the Kursk region of Russia. Three weeks ago, Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into Russia, the largest attack on Russia since World War II.

In a video posted online, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s goal is to create a buffer zone on the border to prevent future Russian attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine’s military said it has seized multiple villages and destroyed bridges. The incursion, so far, has killed 17 people, Russian State Media claims.

“Generally speaking, Russia has struggled to respond,” said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon Press Secretary. “It has certainly demonstrated the creativity and the battlefield prowess of the Ukrainians.”

In a press conference on Wednesday, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, said Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk ended any possibility of peace negotiations to end the war. Fighting began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Zelenskyy said, in another video posted online, Ukraine’s military is achieving its goals.

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Ukraine’s incursion into the Russian Kursk region explained

Ukrainian forces have captured hundreds of square miles of territory inside Russia in one of the most significant incursions into Russia since the Secind World War.

Thousands of Ukrainian troops smashed over the border from Ukraine’s Sumy region into the neighbouring Russian Kursk region on 6 August.

Since then, Kyiv’s forces have claimed to have taken more land in a fortnight than Russia has in Ukraine during this entire calendar year.

While the ground offensive appears to be slowing down, with Russian forces moving “several thousand” troops from less hot areas on the frontline in Ukraine, Kyiv’s air force have started destroying Moscow’s vital military supply lines, suffocating the troops still defending the area in Kursk. .

How much territory has Ukraine taken in Russia?

The numbers vary. Calculating territory taken during an incursion that ebbs and flows is difficult.

Ukraine’s army chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrksyi claims his forces have captured almost 445 square miles (1,150 sq kilometres) of land in Kursk, while they have also set up a military commandant’s office in the occupied part of the region.

For context, that is nearly three times the amount of territory they retook in occupied Ukraine during their three-month counteroffensive last summer, according to estimates.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based think tank that tracks developments on the frontline, offers a more conservative estimate of around 300 square miles (800 sq km).

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said last week that Kyiv’s forces were pushing “one to two kilometres” further all along the new frontline.

The attack, which appears as a bulge into mainland Russia, is around 37 miles wide and almost 17 miles deep.

Could Ukraine take more territory?

Last Friday, Ukraine’s air force destroyed the first of three bridges on the Seym River to the west of the Ukrainian troops in Kursk.

On Saturday and then Sunday night, they destroyed the two other permanent bridges in that area, leaving Russian troops in the southern half of the Glushkovsky district, which is bisected by the Seym, effectively trapped between the river, the Ukrainian border and Kyiv’s forces in front of them.

“The aviation of the Air Force continues to deprive the enemy of logistical capabilities with accurate air strikes, which significantly affects the course of hostilities!” air force commander Mykola Oleschuk wrote on Sunday morning.

Recent drone footage from a Ukrainian brigade also suggests that Kyiv is now using first-person view (FPV) drones to destroy the makeshift Russian pontoon crossings erected in the days since the targeted strikes on the bridges.

The Centre for Defence Strategies, a Ukrainian security think tank, wrote that this indicates “that the objective [of Ukrainian forces] is to take control of a portion of Kursk Oblast south of the Seym River.

Should they take this area, they would almost double the territory they currently control.

How many troops are involved?

A Ukrainian colonel who asked not to be identified to speak openly about sensitive issues told The Independent that around 8,000 soldiers were involved in the incursion.

Thousands more Ukrainian soldiers were ready to enter the fray, he said.

He claimed, in comments that were mirrored by multiple Ukrainian officials, including Mr Zelensky, that the troops were planning to hold their positions to create a “buffer zone”.

Most simply, this zone would put more distance between Russian forces and Ukrainian civilians, reducing, though not halting completely, Moscow’s ability to fire artillery and missiles over the border.

It would also prevent another Russian cross-border assault of their own like the one into the nearby northeast Ukrainian region of Kharkiv in May, which brought the country’s second largest city - with a population of around 1.3 million people - roughly within artillery range of Russian forces.

How many Russian civilians have been evacuated?

Russian officials say nearly 200,000 civilians have been evacuated from the Kursk region and the neighbouring Belgorod area.

Ukrainian forces have not entered Belgorod but a state of emergency has been declared and local officials say Ukraine has launched aerial attacks on the area.

Authorities in the Kursk region decided late on Wednesday night to evacuate another district, Glushkov, as Ukrainian forces continue to advance forwards.

The district directly borders Ukraine and has a population of about 20,000 people. Regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on the Telegram messaging app that police and other state bodies would coordinate the evacuation process.

Have Ukraine captured Russian soldiers?

Mr Zelensky this week claimed one of the goals of the incursion was to replenish an “exchange fund” of Russian prisoners of war.

Thousands of POWs from both sides have been swapped throughout the course of the war in Ukraine, with exchanges taking place roughly every few months.

Private and public estimations of how many Russian soldiers have been captured during this incursion differ significantly.

Mr Zelensky has suggested around Ukrainian troops have taken roughly 100 PoWs; the Ukrainian colonel claimed the true figure was closer to 2,000.

Footage has, however, showed blindfolded men that appear to be Russian soldiers being escorted through the Ukrainian Sumy region in the back of a military pick up.

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