MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. Ukrainian authorities have switched from begging the US to directly blackmailing it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday, commenting on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s remark that "the US will have to send its sons and daughters to the combat zone."

"What do these Zelensky’s words suggest? They suggest that the Kiev regime has switched from begging to direct blackmailing, and it is human lives, not money or weapons, that are now at stake," she said.

Zakharova noted that the Ukrainian president didn’t specify where the "combat zone" is.

"This is a terrorist logic; terrorists, militants initiate hostilities where they see fit - not where fight goes on between armed forces, but where it would be convenient for them, where this would bring them as many bloody dividends as possible," the diplomat noted.