Comment by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov on US arms deliveries to Ukraine

The United States has crossed a line when it announced its intention to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine. Now the deliveries will not be carried out under US companies’ business contracts, as it has been happening for a long time, but under state contracts. They will start with the Javelin missile systems. The question is: what will happen next? In any case, US weapons can lead to new victims in our neighbouring country, and we cannot remain indifferent.

Having played an active role in staging the coup in Kiev several years ago and now gently nurturing the Maidan authorities as they banned the Russian language and bombed those who did not want to stand under Bandera's banners, today the US is clearly pushing them to new bloodshed. Kiev’s revanchists are already shelling Donbass every day, refusing to negotiate peacefully and dreaming of cracking down on the disobedient people by force. Now the United States decided to give them weapons for this.

Unfortunately, it is a waste of time to urge American politicians to see reason. Many of them are so blinded by Russophobia that they are happily applauding the Ukrainian nationalist battalions.

History, of course, will inevitably put everything in its place. However, how can we talk about United States’ reconciliatory role in resolving the conflict in Ukraine in the current situation? Washington is trying to present itself as an intermediary. But it is not an intermediary: it is an accomplice in fomenting a war.