Kiev and its foreign backers are playing with fire, the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer has told RT

Ukraine must have relied on assistance from the West if it did in fact target a helicopter carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has told RT.

Russian air defense division commander Yury Dashkin told the Russia 1 channel last week that Putin's helicopter had been caught in the "epicenter" of a massive Ukrainian drone attack during a visit to Kursk Region on May 20. The intensity of aerial incursions "increased significantly" when the president was in the air, with 46 incoming fixed-wing UAVs being shot down in the area, he said.

In an interview with RT on Wednesday, Ritter stressed that "if the Ukrainians drones actually targeted the Russian president, they did not do so in a vacuum... there would have been assistance provided by the West, which means that the West is targeting the Russian president."

"If you read the Russian nuclear doctrine, this is a trigger for Russian nuclear retaliation or preemptive strikes. So, who is playing with fire here? It is not Vladimir Putin who is playing with fire. It is Ukraine and the West that are playing with fire," he added.

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

The statement by Trump followed large-scale Russian strikes against Ukrainian military infrastructure, which Moscow said were retaliation for the intensification of drone attacks by Kiev on civilian targets inside Russia. According to the Defense Ministry in Moscow, more than 2,300 Ukrainian UAVs have been intercepted over the past week above Russian territory, mostly away from the front line.

Ritter expressed concern that there is a split in the US administration between opponents of Russia and those who are in favor of improving ties with Moscow. But at the same time, representatives of both camps and Trump himself are no experts on Russia, he added.

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The US president "is a victim of basically the last words whispered into his ear before he goes to bed at night or the first words whispered into his ear when he wakes up in the morning... Trump is not well briefed [on Russia]. Look, this is a very dangerous situation," Ritter warned.

(RT.com)