MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. Washington and London are acting as catalysts of the Ukrainian crisis and continue to escalate it, shrugging off the deaths of civilians and huge losses of the Ukrainian forces, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

"The Anglo-Saxons are playing the role of catalyst in the Ukrainian crisis. They contribute to the escalation of this crisis. They cannot be stopped by the deaths of civilians, the huge losses of the Ukrainian armed forces," she said at a news conference. "It is easy for American and British generals to fight now as they are sacrificing people in another country. They generally don’t care much for the fate of Ukraine. They have only one thing on their minds: A strategic, as they say, defeat of Russia."

Zakharova said the West was not satisfied with the current situation on the battlefield and demanded that the Kiev regime justify the funds invested in it and "continue its suicidal counteroffensive at any cost." According to the diplomat, the US and UK governments treat the people of Ukraine "as expendables," demanding that Kiev take more decisive military action against Russia.

"London perceives the citizens of this country as lab test subjects, something like mice or rabbits," the spokeswoman said.

She was commenting on UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace’s statement that Ukraine had become a combat laboratory of the 21st century.