MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. The US is using Ukraine as cannon fodder for hostilities and as a battering ram against Russia to feed its imperial ambitions, says Russian Foreign Ministry North America Department head Alexander Darchiyev.

"The Biden Administration ignores the new geopolitical reality and tries to keep the weakening American hegemony at any cost, including by using Ukraine as a ram against Russia and as cannon fodder for further hostilities. Not only the interests of its European allies - or, rather, satellites - are being sacrificed, but the interests of the US itself as well in order to feed its imperial ambitions," the diplomat noted.

Previously, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, commenting on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to the US, that, during that visit, Washington did not make a single warning against "further barbaric shelling of residential buildings in Donbass settlements," and made no "real calls for peace." According to the spokesman, all this indicates that the US continues its course on "indirectly fighting with Russia until the last Ukrainian.".