Russia has the right to strike NATO plants making weapons for Ukraine, but President Vladimir Putin is showing great restraint to avoid a direct clash with the bloc, former American judge Andrew Napolitano has said.
Kiev has been launching hundreds of fixed-wing drones deep into Russian territory on a daily basis in recent months, many of which are manufactured in European countries. Earlier this year, the Defense Ministry in Moscow published a list of enterprises producing the UAVs, some of which are based in the UK, Germany, Italy, Czechia, and other NATO-member states. London and Paris are currently also discussing plans to make long-range SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles in Ukraine.
In an interview with RT on Friday, Napolitano, who hosts the popular ‘Judging Freedom’ interview channel on YouTube, said that “President Putin has demonstrated an almost saint-like capacity for patience and forbearance” by not ordering Russian forces to target those facilities.
“Under international law, he would have every right to strike at the munitions plants and the military, not the civilians… of the countries that are producing the weapons that are striking deep into Russia,” he said.
“I’m sure he understands that. My guess is that he’s considered it, but he’s been consistently patient. Sometimes even to the dismay of his strongest supporters,” the former New Jersey Superior Court judge added.
Putin is focused on the Ukraine conflict and “does not want a war against NATO,” he argued.
The Russian president previously labeled claims of Moscow having aggressive designs against the bloc as “nonsense,” saying that they are only made by Western politicians to distract the public from problems at home and justify growing military spending.
However, Moscow warned the UK in late August that its military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond could become legitimate targets for Russia if Kiev continues to use British-supplied weapons for strikes on Russian territory.
Russian officials also said that if Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania knowingly helped to facilitate Ukrainian drone attacks against northwestern Russia, Moscow could consider them complicit in those actions and would have the right to self-defense under the UN Charter.
Napolitano said that the Ukraine conflict is “headed into an acceleration” and that he expects “a last-ditched effort by some of the NATO countries to try and prevent the inevitable, which is the achievement by the Russian military of its objectives.”
“The Ukrainians are aware that they’re on their last legs, so to speak, in the war. They know that their days are numbered,” he stressed.