‘U.S. FUELLING BLOODSHED IN EAST UKRAINE’
Moscow slams Washington’s move to supply lethal weapons to Kiev
MOSCOW defence capacity”.
An ABC news report before the announcement said the US planned to supply Ukraine with anti-tank missiles, including possibly the advanced Javelin system, citing four State Department officials.
“The total defence package of US$47 million (RM192 million) includes the sale of 210 anti-tank missiles and 35 launchers,” the report added.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued by the Elysee Palace, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron said: “There is no alternative to an exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict.
“It is necessary to implement agreements on disengagement and the withdrawal of heavy weapons behind the agreed withdrawal lines, withdrawal of tanks, artillery and mortars to the agreed storage sites.”
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said: “The American weapons in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers are not for offensive purposes, but to respond in a resolute way to the aggressor... and for effective selfdefence.”
“Finally!” Ukrainian ambassador to the US Valeriy Chaly wrote on Facebook.
“Our strategic partner, the US, has definitively made up its mind: as a sovereign state, Ukraine has a legitimate right to buy and receive defensive weapons, including lethal weapons. Weakness provokes the aggressor. Strength contains him.”
More than 10,000 people have died and almost 24,000 have been injured since the pro-Russian insurgency broke out in April 2014.
A United Nations report said this week that 220,000 children were at imminent risk of being hurt by mines and other explosive weapons in eastern Ukraine, one of the most mine-contaminated places on earth. Agencies