Russia sends worrying threat to US after Trump ‘approves plan’ for Iran attack as tensions rise
Russia has sent a threat to the US to stay away from direct intervention in the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Tensions are rising after Israel resumed missile strikes on Iran, striking several nuclear research facilities and claiming it had to do so because Iran was developing nuclear weapons.
Iran responded with missile strikes of its own into Israel, having said that it treated being struck as a 'declaration of war' and that other countries which helped Israel in the conflict would also be considered as part of it.
Responding to that, US President Donald Trump said that he would bring the US Armed Forces down on Iran at 'levels never seen before' if it struck American bases in the region and claimed that they could 'easily get a deal done'.
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However, he's said he doesn't want a ceasefire but a 'complete give-up' by Iran, and Russian officials have now made their own position clear on the matter.
What has Donald Trump said?
Many, many things, but his recent utterances on the subject of Iran have had him saying he was 'not going to let' the world get blown up by a nuclear bomb the Iranians haven't developed yet.
Speaking in the Oval Office while the Juventus football team had popped round for a visit, which made for a bizarre scene, Trump was asked to give a clear answer on whether the US would strike Iran and declined to do so.
"I may do it, I may not," he said instead, before going on to say there was 'no way' that Iran could be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
"You may have to fight. And maybe it'll end very quickly but there's no way you can allow, whether you have to fight or not, Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
"Because the entire world would blow up, [I'm] not going to let that happen."
Refusing to confirm he would be taking one course of action or the other, he said 'nobody knows what I’m going to do', and that it was not 'too late' for Iran to surrender.
The US president added: "I can tell you this. Iran’s got a lot of trouble.
"Nothing is finished until it is finished, but the next week is going to be very big - maybe less than a week."
Trump also said: "I have ideas on what to do but I haven’t made a final... I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due."
Not the most encouraging thing to hear.
The 'approved plan' claims
The Wall Street Journal yesterday (18 June) reported that Trump had 'approved of attack plans for Iran', though it added that he had not at the time made a final decision on whether or not to go ahead with them.
If that sounds a tad contradictory, the report explains that this 'approved plan' is the thumbs up to prepare for an attack rather than the green light to start firing.
A development like this doesn't mean that the US has declared war on Iran or started joining Israel in its strikes on the country, but things are at the stage where the US is pretty much ready to go if Donald Trump orders it to.
The US has been moving more military assets to the Middle East, including F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter planes, mid-air refuelling planes and warships capable of shooting down aircraft.
According to Reuters, American officials have been stressing these are redeployments of a 'defensive nature'.
Russia's threat
Time reports that Russia has warned the US away from taking a direct role in the conflict, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov saying it would 'radically destabilize the entire situation'.
A foreign ministry spokesperson said: "Nuclear facilities are being struck. Where is the entire world community? Where are all the environmentalists?"
While one of Russia's generals declared that 'World War Three' had started, the country's foreign ministry said in a statement that the conflict going on would risk a 'nuclear catastrophe', hitting out at 'attempts of the Western camp to manipulate the global nuclear non-proliferation'.
Russia has been pretty pally with Iran for a while now, especially as the Middle Eastern country has been supplying it with weapons and other forms of support since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Putin called the rising tensions and missile strikes between Israel and Iran a 'delicate issue' but claimed he thought 'a solution could be found'.
He claimed to have made a proposal to Israel, Iran and the US settle the conflict, which Trump had rebuffed.
The US president said: "I said, ‘Do me a favour, mediate your own’.
"I said, ‘Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first. You can worry about this later’."
Topics: Donald Trump, Russia, US News, World News, Iran
Joe Harker