GENEVA, May 14. /TASS/. The countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are waging a proxy war on Russia by financing the Kiev regime and supplying it with arms and military hardware, Gennady Gatilov, Russian permanent representative to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, said at the Conference on Disarmament.
"Instead of working on a peaceful settlement and seeking ways to restore the European security architecture, NATO countries are stubbornly waging a proxy war against our country, providing the corrupt Kiev regime with weapons and military hardware, as well as large-scale financing," Gatilov said. The diplomat noted that since the onset of the special military operation and until this March, the Kiev regime has received from the US, the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, France, Sweden and other countries 785 tanks, 266 multiple launch rockets systems, 844 155-mm artillery systems, 93 152-mm artillery systems, 278 122-mm artillery systems, 251 air defense systems, 30 planes and 91 helicopters." New financial aid packages are being approved which together have already reached hundreds of billions of dollars.
This financing of the Kiev regime "not only is provoking it to commit new war crimes and affirms its awareness of its own impunity, but also results in prolonging and exacerbating the conflict," the Russian diplomat stressed. The absence of proper control over the location of weapons and military hardware results in the arms spreading, ending up on the black market and other conflict zones and elevates terrorist threats, the envoy said. A vivid example is the March 22 deadly terrorist attack in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall music venue, Gatilov stated.
The Russian official highlighted the process of signing "bilateral agreements with Ukraine on security guarantees" launched by the West. He noted that such documents are "purely declarative because the US and its allies are clearly not ready to take on any firm obligations on Ukraine." However, the so-called defenders of Ukrainian sovereignty are "persistently trying to create a propaganda smokescreen and nourish the Kiev regime’s illusory hope for collective support on the part of Europe and the West in general," Gatilov concluded.