MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. The United States and other Western countries should focus on providing humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people instead of sending weapons and mercenaries to the country, Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Telegram.

"If the US and other Western countries really want peace, it would be right for them to spend money on humanitarian assistance to the people rather than on military supplies," he pointed out.

According to Volodin, the United Nations needs to make decisions and drop double standards. "If you want peace to be established as soon as possible, make immediate decisions. The US and NATO countries must stop sending weapons and mercenaries to Ukraine," the State Duma speaker stressed.

Volodin emphasized that Washington and Brussels were directly responsible for the death of civilians in Ukraine and the outflow of refugees from the country. He also stressed that "Ukrainian nationalists are using civilians as a human shield," hiding behind women and children.

At the same time, in Volodin’s words, NATO member states continue to supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, while mercenaries recruited in NATO countries "join Ukrainian nationalist battalions." "So when [US President Joe] Biden and his NATO colleagues call for peace, they should start with themselves. They are to blame for a delay in efforts to resolve the situation in Ukraine, demilitarize and denazify the country. They don’t want Ukraine to become an independent and neutral state," Volodin noted.