MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Washington is encouraging Kiev to commit a bloodbath in Donbass, which amounts to being an accessory to murder, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

"By providing weapons to the Kiev authorities, the United States actually pushes them to resume mass bloodshed in Donbass, though the region is on the brink of a catastrophe because of constant shelling attacks by the Kiev-controlled forces," she added. "Washington is about to become an accessory to the murder of people who rose to fight against nationalists who had carried out a coup and protect their right to speak their native language, as well as their set of values," Zakharova added.

"Of course, history will put everything in its place but we would like it to happen now and not many years later, because it would spare many lives," she stressed.

The State Department earlier approved an export license for Ukraine to buy lethal weapons from American manufacturers. "The Department of State has licensed the commercial export of a limited number of small arms and light weapons to Ukraine from US manufacturers," a State Department official told TASS.

The Washington Post newspaper said earlier: "The Trump administration has approved the first ever US commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, in a clear break from the de facto US ban on arms sales that dates back to the Obama administration."

"Administration officials confirmed that the State Department this month approved a commercial license authorizing the export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated parts and accessories to Ukraine, a sale valued at $41.5 million," the newspaper added. "We have crossed the Rubicon, this is lethal weapons and I predict more will be coming," a senior congressional official said as cited by the Washington Post.