'I Honestly Feel Argentina Isn't Safe Place for Putin to Go' - Political Analyst

Moscow has hit back at US President Donald Trump's cancelation of his scheduled meeting with President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit saying that it would give more time for the Russian leader to hold more “useful” meetings. The two leaders were due to hold talks this weekend in Buenos Aries.

Scott Rickard, a former US Air Force Intelligence Analyst, political analyst told Sputnik that he believes the G20 summit in Argentina will prove to be a tense event due to the current geopolitical situation:

"Putin has really shown a good statesman position, he's trying to promote peace in several areas around the planet and I honestly feel like this is not a safe place for Putin to go. Argentina has traditionally been very close to UK and US operations from an intelligence perspective, so there's a lot of very anti-Russian intelligence operatives in Argentina and certainly the situation would be far more dangerous for Putin to go into what I would consider the lions den, South America."

READ MORE: World Leaders Arrive in Buenos Aires Ahead of Tension-Filled G20 Summit

Mr Rickard also stressed that it's not easy times for Moscow to try and find ways of cooperation with the West:

"I honestly believe that this is a very difficult time for Russia to play cooperative participant in any of these international affairs. The US is just itching to find a situation, look at the way they responded to the Kerch security measures that the Russian Navy had to take."

The US political analyst said he believes that the Russian leader should just skip the whole summit:

"I think Putin should send in somebody who can represent him and move on with better things because the G20, unfortunately, does not work on behalf of any of the BRICS type of nations. […] So I'd focus more on the BRICS type initiatives to continue to separate themselves from the mafioso that have been really attacking the Russian Empire for now 500 years, but certainly with US along their side well over a century."

The G20 summit also comes after US lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a bill that prevents extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia.

Mr. Rickard noted that the US has gone "overboard" in their confrontation with Russia and not just recently:

Obviously, they've moved tactical nuclear capabilities within range of Russia, certainly they've had those in areas which they violated former agreements post the pullback of the Soviet Union to allow sovereignty in former Soviet states, and certainly the United States have violated and then NATO have violated those agreements, just subsequently, year after year since the early 90's, so this is really an ongoing problem."

READ MORE: Analysts: Trump Cancelling G20 Talks With Putin Proves Kerch Provocation Worked

Earlier in November a US Navy reconnaissance aircraft was intercepted by a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea and the expert noted that US carrying out such missions is a serious event:

"If you look at the recent reconnaissance operations from Souda Bay (Greece), the Americans are now flying manned reconnaissance flights from Souda Bay to the Black Sea and this is really one of their spearheaded battlefield management platforms RC-135,a platform that I worked on in the 80s. This is not a small event, this is a huge undertaking when you consider the fact that a lot of the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft that they have today and the satellite intelligence, by putting a manned linguistical capable reconnaissance platform so close to the battlefield management environment, I think with what they're doing is obviously giving the linguist and the electronic warfare officers first-hand information using the best technology available today to conduct a warfield, battlefield management plan," the Mr. Rickard concluded.

The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.