Western governments are flooding Ukraine with weapons in order to prolong the conflict with Russia and prevent a peaceful settlement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova charged in her press briefing yesterday. Ukrainian embassies in other countries also continue to recruit mercenaries of all kinds to travel to Ukrainian combat zones, she added, pointing out that there are about 6,800 foreign mercenaries from 63 countries that have arrived in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation.
As for the weapons issue, Zakharova warned that European governments would do well to remember what happened after they provided weapons to “moderate” militants in the Middle East and North Africa—Syria and Iraq for example—only to later become the victims of attacks from terrorists using those very weapons. Both the U.S. and NATO have openly admitted they can’t really track weapons once they are delivered to Ukraine. Reminding the EU that it has been through a similar situation before, she pointedly asked, “can the EU guarantee that it will keep its citizens safe “from the `instructors’ who have gained even more `experience’ after spending some time in a place with hundreds of thousands of uncontrolled small arms coming home and turning those weapons against their own citizens?”
