Russian officials said a decision by the United States to provide arms to Ukraine is dangerous as it will encourage Kiev to use force in eastern Ukraine.
MOSCOW — The decision by the United States to supply weapons to Ukraine is dangerous as it will encourage Kiev to use force in eastern Ukraine, Russian officials said on Saturday.
The statement came one day after the State Department said that the United States would provide Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities” as Kiev battles Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country.
President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine said on Facebook on Saturday the weapons would be used to protect Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.
Supplies of any weapons would encourage those who support the conflict in Ukraine to use the “force scenario,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Saturday, according to the RIA state news agency. Franz Klintsevich, a member of the upper house of the Russian Parliament’s security committee, said Kiev would consider arms supplies as support of its actions, Interfax news agency reported.
“Americans, in fact, directly push Ukrainian forces to war,” Mr. Klintsevich said.
Since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine and Russia have been at loggerheads over a war in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 10,000 people in three years.
Mr. Poroshenko said in his Facebook post that he had confirmed the weapons deal with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, calling it “a trans-Atlantic vaccination against the Russian virus of aggression.”
“American weapons in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers are not for offensive, but for stronger rebuff of the aggressor, protection of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, as well as for effective self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the U. N. Charter,” Mr. Poroshenko said.
Kiev accuses Moscow of sending troops and heavy weapons to the region, which Russia denies.
The Russian foreign ministry said the decision by the United States undermines the Minsk agreements, the TASS state news agency reported on Saturday.
The agreements, intended to end the fighting in Ukraine, were signed by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in the Belarusian capital in early 2015.
But despite the cease-fire agreements, the fighting has continued. Earlier this week, European observers and Western diplomats reported that the violence in rebel-held eastern Ukraine escalated sharply. The recent fighting is the heaviest it has been in nearly a year, said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors the implementation of the peace agreement.
The organization had recorded 16,000 cease-fire violations between Dec. 11 and Dec. 17, a 35 percent increase on the week before.
