MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. NATO countries are fanning the flames of civil war in Ukraine by building up arms deliveries to Kiev, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

"The developments in Ukraine continue to be a cause for concern," the Russian diplomat pointed out. "NATO countries are ramping up the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and training its servicemen and are doing so not for the purpose of some mythical task of maintaining peace and stability but for the purpose of increasing the scale of the ongoing civil war in the country by fanning its flames," the spokeswoman stressed.

As the Russian diplomat recalled, "the United States has rendered Ukraine military assistance worth $2.5 billion since 2014, including over $400 million this year."

"Washington recently delivered 30 Javelin anti-tank missile systems and 180 missiles worth $60 million," she said. "Next year, $300 million will be earmarked for the delivery of weapons and ammunition to Kiev. The first batch worth $20 million is being prepared for shipment already in January and includes video surveillance and communications systems, special transportation vehicles, drones and so on," the spokeswoman pointed out.

This kind of assistance will surely "fail to resolve the humanitarian problems of Donbass’ residents or contribute to a peaceful solution to the armed conflict, or create conditions for implementing the Minsk agreements," the Russian diplomat said.

"However, these funds could have been spent on far more peaceful, proper and truly humanitarian goals," she explained.

"For example, they would have been almost sufficient to pay the arrears to Donbass’ pensioners, which make up about $3 billion, according to Ukrainian officials," Zakharova said.

"Western instructors keep training the Ukrainian military and outright neo-Nazis as revealed by the recent scandal at the Hetman Pyotr Sagaidachny National Ground Forces Academy," the Russian diplomat pointed out.

"About 10,000 NATO troops, 4,000 from the United States and 6,000 from the alliance’s other countries, have been stationed in the country of the victorious Maidan," the spokeswoman said.

This runs counter to the Minsk accords on settling the situation in eastern Ukraine, which directly stipulates the need to pull out all foreign military contingents, Zakharova said.

Despite this, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) will vote on a bill on deploying foreign troops on Ukrainian territory in 2022 to participate in nine military drills that are "bound by the common scenario and are of anti-Russia bias and have nothing to do with the long-awaited peace, calm and security in Ukraine’s south," the Russian diplomat emphasized.

"We have repeatedly pointed out that Ukraine’s militarization does not contribute to settling the intra-Ukrainian conflict and only encourages the Kiev regime to repeat its 2014-2015 military adventures that resulted in numerous victims and destruction and had a heavy toll on the fates of millions of people," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.