MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. NATO countries are involved in war crimes being committed by the Ukrainian military with Western weapons, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on Thursday.

He stressed that Western weapons were being widely used by the Ukrainian military to shell homes, schools and hospitals, kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure.

"All these acts are war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law to which NATO member-countries are accomplices. In the meantime, their representatives are fond of moralizing and hypocritically talking about human rights from the rostrum of the UN HRC," Ryabkov said.

"It is the Western countries that are pursuing a policy of deliberate escalation of the crisis in Ukraine by supplying Kiev with ever more new types of heavy weapons," he added.