Lenta.ru, 8/6/24 (Machine translated)

Ukrainian special services planned an attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov at a parade in St. Petersburg on Navy Day. This was stated by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

He noted that several days before the parade, Belousov had a telephone conversation with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, in which he urged his American counterpart to persuade Kiev to abandon its intentions. According to Ryabkov, Austin was “extremely surprised” by the information, but took it seriously.

“Moscow and Washington avoided an escalatory spiral,” Ryabkov emphasized.

Earlier, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry , Maria Zakharova, pointed out the role of Great Britain in the Ukrainian assassination attempt on Putin. “There is no doubt that the assassination attempt on Putin, which [the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Kirill] Budanov (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring ) spoke about, was planned with the participation of the Anglo-Saxon masters of Kiev,” she said.

The conversation between Belousov and Austin took place on July 12. As the American newspaper The New York Times (NYT) later wrote, citing sources, Belousov called Pentagon chief Austin about a secret Ukrainian operation.