A series of reports in Western media claiming that Russia could be poised to invade Ukraine are a pretext to supply Kiev with lethal weaponry and spark a conflict on their shared border, Moscow has alleged amid a series of arms deliveries carried out by Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF).
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “Western and Ukrainian media and government officials are becoming even more active in their speculation about an ‘imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.’ We are convinced that the goal of this campaign is to create an information cover for their own-large scale, military provocations, which could have severe and tragic consequences for regional and global security.”
“Britain has been sending arms to Ukraine with its RAF planes for several days,” Zakharova told reporters. “At least six flights were organized, and each aircraft can hold up to 77.5 tons of weight, which comes to around 460 tons of weaponry in total.”
“We call for Western nations to stop their aggressive anti-Russian information campaign, their support for the militarization of Ukraine and its induction into NATO, and instead put their effort into convincing Kiev to fulfill the Minsk Agreements and other international necessities,” she went on.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Petrenko thanked Britain for its military assistance, saying that the supplies “will be used exclusively for defense purposes,” to protect troops and civilians against “any actions that could lead to escalation.”
Zakharova’s comments come as leaders from Ukraine and other Western nations continue to voice fears about the prospect of Russia ordering an invasion of its neighbor, which the Kremlin has repeatedly insisted amount to nothing more than “hysteria.”
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