VIENNA, February 4. /TASS/. The EU countries are hindering Russian-American efforts to resolve the Ukrainian conflict, said Yuliya Zhdanova, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna disarmament talks.

"Going against the negotiation process on the Ukrainian settlement, the European countries continue to add fuel to the fire of the conflict. Europe's fixation on acting 'from a position of strength' looks especially ridiculous against the background of the US administration's attempts to facilitate the negotiation process. In particular, yesterday, speaking from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada in Kiev, NATO Secretary General [Mark] Rutte said that after the conclusion of the peace agreement, "armed forces, aircraft in the air and support at sea from those NATO members who agreed to this will immediately appear on the territory of Ukraine." He stubbornly continues to promote militarization of Ukraine, although the Russian Federation has repeatedly stated that the deployment of NATO troops and military infrastructure in Ukraine will be considered by us as a foreign intervention and a direct threat to the security of our country and European states," she told a meeting of the OSCE Security Cooperation Forum.

"In fact, M. Rutte's statement translates into a generally understandable language as follows: 'We will not allow peace in Ukraine and will force it to fight to the last Ukrainian'".