MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/. It's time for the West to stop hiding behind the talk of peace, and to end the conflict in Ukraine by stopping weapons supplies to Kiev, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"Arms supplies are one of the obstacles to the Ukrainian settlement," the diplomat said at a briefing. She recalled the "self-revealing statements" of former European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that without Western supplies, the conflict in Ukraine "would have ended within days, weeks or a month."
"If the Western OSCE participating states sincerely want to put an end to the confrontation, which drains the resources of their own taxpayers, they just need to stop providing weapons to the Kiev regime," she said.
"But we can see what's really going on. Then let them not hide behind the talk of peace, but directly say that they want only one thing - aggression."
She said there were facts galore of the use of Western weapons and other equipment against the civilian Russians.
She added that another consequence of the Western arms supplies is their involvement in illegal turnover, "into the hands of national radicals, terrorists, gangs not only in Ukraine, but also beyond its borders. Such facts are already being recorded. Besides European countries, for example, in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.
"In recent years, there has been a surge in Ukraine, an increase in crimes committed with the use of illegal weapons and ammunition by more than 40 times. Ukraine has actually turned into one of the largest centers of the international black arms market. In addition, the West turns a blind eye to the Kiev regime's use of supplied weapons in violation of the international humanitarian law. And not only do they not prevent destabilizing accumulations of conventional weapons, but they also contribute to their piling."