MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. The European countries violate their obligations by stepping up weapons supplies to Ukraine. The responsibility for violating control of the handover of weapons rests entirely upon the US-led collective West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday.
She stressed that instead of making the regime in Kiev comply with the Minsk agreements on time, thus ensuring a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, directly linked with the termination of genocide in Donbass, the US-led Euro-Atlantic allies for the past few years focused their efforts on gaining a firmer foothold in Ukraine and on training nationalist forces with the aim of suppressing dissent in the East and South of the country by force. Zakharova said that such actions merely increased the risk of the conflict’s further growth.
"Also, the Kiev regime’s self-styled supporters violate a number of international obligations, such as the EU’s common stance that prohibits the export of weapons, if it creates obvious risks they may be used for internal reprisals in the recipient country, or may result in violations of international humanitarian law, or contribute to the emergence or exacerbation of armed conflicts," Zakharova said. "I would like to stress that these are not pledges the EU countries have made to somebody. They constitute their own stance they decided to observe among themselves."
Zakharova stressed that the EU’s brainchild - the international Arms Trade Treaty - obliged its signatories to objectively assess the probability the weapons being supplied might harm peace and security or be used to commit violations in the field of international humanitarian law or acts of violence against women and children.
"This treaty also establishes a ban on the handover of conventional weapons, if there is reliable evidence these weapons will be used for committing acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, or serious violations of the Geneva conventions. In a word, this is the precisely the list of crimes that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis and the Ukrainian army units they lead commit on the daily basis," Zakharova said.
End user certificate
Zakharova stressed that the West crudely ignored international agreements aimed at minimizing the risks of smart weapons emerging on the shadow market. Russia finds worrisome the Euro-Atlantic allies’ crude violation of the years-old practice of strict compliance with the end user certificate provisions, including the impermissibility of re-export of imported weapons without written permission from the exporter country or the owner of this or that technological intellectual property, she stressed.
"All responsibility for such reckless violations of obligations in the field of arms transfer restrictions rests squarely upon the US-led collective West," Zakharova concluded.