'Farcical, laughable': John Kirby on Lavrov's war started by West' remark

Washington [US], February 8 : Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remark that the war is "started by the West," is "laughable" and "farcical", United States National Security Council (NSC) Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said on Wednesday.
While responding to a media query regarding Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's visit to the US, Kirby said, "Looking forward to Lula's visit to the US which will not be just about Brazil but will also discuss issues like hemispheric issues, Global issues because the war in Ukraine is affecting everybody... On the agenda I think you can imagine will be the war in Ukraine because it has an effect around the world, food security, and energy security are two of the biggest ways in which Putin's War has affected nations all over the world in and it had a profound impact particularly in Latin America as well as throughout the African countries."
"The Russian would have you believe as Lavrov likes to say that the war started by the West that places throughout the world, particularly in Africa and Latin America are issues with energy and food security which is farcical and it would be a laughable comment if it wasn't so serious about the impact that it is having..." he added.
In the early weeks of February, the US White House said that the Brazilian President will visit Washington in March.
"President Biden looks forward to welcoming President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil to the White House on Friday, February 10 to further strengthen the close relationship between the United States and Brazil," spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
Before diving into the Question and Answer session, Jean-Pierre said, "Our two urban search and rescue teams are now on the ground and they are moving into position out of the Incirlik base and these are nearly 80-person search and rescue teams are Disaster Assistance Response Team is also setting up their base of operation and Incirlik and they are beginning to coordinate needs with the govt. of Turkey, at the request of Turkey's govt, of course, USAID is working to provide some support for field medical services."
On Monday, a 7.8 magnitude tremor struck Turkey at 04:17 local time (01:17 GMT) at a depth of 17.9km near the city of Gaziantep. Within 9 hours, a second earthquake of magnitude 7.6 jolted the Kahramanmaras's Elbistan district.
While answering to a media query regarding the Chinese spy balloon, Kirby said that they can't give many details about this but can say that they will inform allies and partners about the same.
"We are going to be reaching out to allies and partners all over the world who we believe need to know more about the Chinese spy balloon program. We did acknowledge that there was a second one flying over Southern Hemisphere we did not assess that the balloon was a physical military threat any more than the one that was flying over the continental US and obviously, we routinely take app action to preserve our own informational and physical security in situations like this," Kirby said.
Earlier, the US recently shot down a Chinese spy balloon which the Chinese Communist Party said is a communications set-up and which the Americans have already declared a spy in the air at 60,000 feet.
On February 2, the US government detected a Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted moving over commercial air traffic over the past several days, according to the statement released by the
Department of Defence.
Responding to a media query about whether the balloon is from China or from any other country, a senior defence official said, "Yes, so, I mean, it is a surveillance balloon. And not to be -- I'm not trying to be a wise guy. But the goal is surveillance. And clearly, they're trying to fly this -- this balloon over sensitive sites, one of which was just mentioned, to collect information. As I said, we do not judge that it provides significant value added over and above what they can currently collect in other means. But nevertheless, it's something we're watching closely."