WASHINGTON, August 9. /TASS/. A new $1 bln package of American military aid to Kiev confirms that the US does not intend to assist in peacefully settling the crisis in Ukraine but wants to prolong the conflict, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said on Monday.
"Washington continues to "add fuel to the fire" of the Ukrainian conflict. The allocation of an additional 1 billion dollars for these purposes confirms that the United States does not intend to listen to reason and is not going to contribute to a peaceful settlement of the crisis. Against this background, the statements of the administration representatives that the supply of defense products will strengthen Kiev's position at the "probable" negotiating table look especially cynical. It is unclear how one can, in principle, talk about dialogue in conditions when the only goal of the United States is to prolong the conflict as much as possible," the Russian envoy said as quoted by the embassy’s press service on its Telegram channel.
He stressed "that the unrestrained pumping of Ukraine with weapons is increasingly causing concern in the United States itself. American experts, columnists of leading publications and ordinary citizens are wondering: how much help reaches its destination? There is a lot of evidence of fraudulent schemes during the transportation of defense products. This proves that it is becoming more difficult to hush up the pernicious aspects of military assistance to Kiev."
According to the diplomat, "some of the American weapons still end up on the front line. Zelensky's militants carry out deadly strikes on residential areas of Donbass cities on a daily basis. And now they are also exposing whole Europe to extreme danger by attacking the Zaporozhye NPP. We hope that these facts will open the eyes of US citizens as soon as possible and they will understand whom exactly their country supports."
Counting the new package, US military aid to Kiev will amount to about $9.8 bln.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." Following this, the US and its allies announced the introduction of sweeping sanctions against Russia and stepped up arms deliveries to Kiev.