The Kremlin insisted on Thursday that deliveries of heavy weapons to Ukraine by European countries threaten security on the continent..
(Read: ‘They put the world close to a catastrophe by occupying Chernobyl’, Zelensky)
“The tendency to fill Ukraine and other countries with weapons are actions that threaten the security of the continent and cause instability,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, at his daily press conference.
(He is interested in: Putin cuts off the gas to Poland and Bulgaria launching a threat to more countries)
Russia previously warned that it will consider weapons supplied by the West to Ukraine to be “legitimate objectives” of its Armed Forces.
In this regard, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused NATO this week of “fighting Russia through its proxy and arming that proxy.” Moscow also criticized the delivery to Ukraine of Russian helicopters destined for Afghanistan.
“The US decision to supply the aforementioned ‘Afghan’ helicopters to Ukraine grossly violates international law and the corresponding Russian-American contracts,” Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS) said in a statement.
UK will continue to arm Ukraine
What we have always been careful with is to make sure that we calibrated the type of weaponry that we were sending (…) it is important to link the Russian behavior with the response
Meanwhile, the British defense minister, Ben Wallace assured this Thursday that the United Kingdom will help Ukraine to “defend its sovereign nation” of Russia’s attack for as long as this takes.
The Conservative politician spoke to several British media to whom he indicated that the worse Russia behaves in its invasion of Ukraine, the more the West will contribute to helping that country defend itself.
According to him, if the Russian forces “do terrible things, they must realize that there will be an increase in the weapons (that we send) to the Ukrainians.”
“And in this way, if Russia continues to indiscriminately bomb people from the air – like what he has done in Mariupol, for example – destroys the city, of course The West will respond more to the requests of the Ukrainians to defend themselves and sometimes this will include planes and tanks,” he said.
Wallace also stressed that the supply of weapons to help Ukraine defend itself against the Russians is not “a NATO effort” but is due to bilateral agreements.
We are ready to help Ukraine defend its sovereign nation for as long as it takes
“Contrary to what (Russian President Vladimir) Putin thinks, this is not a NATO effort. These countries, including the UK – there are almost 40 now helping Ukraine – do it through bilateral agreements as they want to defend values that we consider important,” he told the radio station BBC Radio 4.
He also agreed with Foreign Minister Liz Truss, indicating that Russian forces must be expelled from “all of Ukraine” and assured that London will support the Ukrainians “both in their diplomatic measures and in their military efforts.”
Bulgaria will provide more aid
The Bulgarian Parliament will finally authorize the shipment of weapons to Ukraine on May 4 to help him repel the Russian invasion, according to the Prime Minister, the Europeanist Kiril Petkov, who is scheduled to meet this Thursday with the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, assured this Thursday from kyiv.
“As part of the democratic world, we cannot remain indifferent to this tragedy and say that it is a uniquely Ukrainian problem (…). Ukraine is not someone else’s problem,” Petkov said, according to the Bulgarian media.
The prime minister hoped that the arms shipment would receive majority support in Parliament. The measure is backed by three of the four government parties, the reformist Let’s Continue Petkov’s Changes, and two protest parties.
Opposed, however, is the Socialist Party, heir to the former Communist Party and close to Russia, which has threatened to break up the government coalition if Ukraine is supported militarily.
In fact, the Socialists are the only ones who have not sent a representative to the government delegation headed by Petkov in Ukraine. With the support of the majority of the opposition, the initiative is expected to add 200 of the 240 seats in Parliament.
Bulgaria, a member of the EU, is one of the NATO countries that has so far not sent weapons to Ukraine, arguing that this would mean getting involved in the conflict and prolonging it. This thesis is also defended by the country’s president, Rumen Radev, who is close to Moscow.
Radev, who begins an official visit to Spain this Thursday, accused the Petkov government of being responsible for cutting off gas shipments to Bulgaria by Russia. The prime minister called Radev’s stance “shameful.”
“For months we have heard the rhetoric that it is better not to give weapons to Ukraine in order to achieve peace as soon as possible. If this destruction of homes and murdered civilians is the price of this peace, and Russia continues to shoot and no one has the possibility to defend themselves, so we don’t want it,” Petkov said from Borodyanka, a municipality near kyiv devastated during the Russian aggression.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE and AFP
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