Kovalchuk, Utkin, Zatulin are Russia's new 'national salvation committee' - Piontkovsky

Political analyst Andrey Piontkovsky said this on Espreso TV. 

“We can already see a new 'national salvation committee' - Kovalchuk (an entrepreneur close to Putin - ed.) and Utkin (head of the Wagner PMC). And there is an interesting figure, Zatulin (First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots - ed.). What few people noticed, because I'm a person who is obsessed with nuclear strategy, was that Prigozhin and Zatulin, who had never had anything to do with the nuclear issue, both inserted the same texts into their speeches, saying that they were categorically against not only the use of nuclear weapons, but also categorically against blackmail with nuclear weapons. I interpret this as a text written, of course, by the leadership of this party - a signal to the outside world: we are not crazy, we can be dealt with,” he said.

This is a message for the West, but the United States also draws attention to Chinese President Xi Jinping's unprotocoled honors for Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

“Firstly, during his visit to Moscow, he had a one-on-one meeting with the prime minister, in addition to meeting with Putin. Then Xi invited Mishustin, and a month later he was in Beijing, where he was received according to the protocol of the head of state, with an honor guard, a parade, and a long meeting with Xi. By the way, all these anti-nuclear passages in the mouths of both Zatulin and Prigozhin appeared after Mishustin's return. And one more circumstance: Mishustin never spoke out on the war during his years as prime minister. He was always talking about the economy,” the political scientist emphasized.

• On June 3, Konstantin Zatulin stated that the Russian war against Ukraine had failed.