Moscow sees US troops in Ukraine as step one to supplies of US weapons

The United States’ sending its airborne troops to Ukraine can be seen as the first step towards supplies of state-of-the-art US weapons, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich said on Friday.

"As far as I know, the training program includes drilling skills in handling weapons and hardware of Western standards," he said. "It can be considered as the first step towards supplies of state-of-the-art American weapons the Kiev ‘party of war’ is craving for so much. Washington’s encouraging attitude towards its revanchist plans is fraught with another surge of violence and bloodshed in our neighbouring country."

"Reports about the arrival of 290 servicemen of the US 173 Airborne Brigade (deployed in Italy’s Vicenza) to the Yavorovsky testing ground in Ukraine’s Lvov region cannot but cause serious concern," he said. "It is evident that American soldiers in Ukraine will not bring peace to it."

The diplomat also once again pointed out that US sending its airborne troops to Ukraine runs counter to Minsk agreements.

"These actions run counter to the agreements reached in Minsk on February 12 and signed by the Kiev authorities supported, as far as we understand, by Washington," he said. "So, it is a flagrant violation of liabilities Kiev has undertaken, while the Obama administration, which calls for a peace settlement of the Ukrainian crisis in word, is seeking to frustrate the Minsk agreements in fact."
  [tass.ru]
17/4/15
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