Russia warns of US troop deployment to Ukraine
Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin has warned the world body’s Security Council, UNSC, over Washington’s deployment of 300 servicemen to Ukraine and a US Congress proposal to provide Kiev with one billion dollars in lethal aid.
"The US Congress is working on a bill on allocating $1 billion to equip and train Ukrainian troops. According to available information, three hundred US servicemen are to be commissioned to the Lviv region these days to train Ukrainian soldiers to operate overseas weaponry," said Churkin on Friday.
Churkin warned that such US measures will have dangerous consequences, saying "the whole world knows: there where the American military appear, there comes havoc."
The Russian envoy gave an example of Washington’s interference in the region, speaking of US deployment of nearly 130 military advisers to Georgia during its aggression in 2008 in South Ossetia, which was seeking to break away from Tbilisi. The major offensive aimed at retaking control of the region led to a brief war between Georgia and Russia.
"I would like to remind you, for example, that during the (Mikheil) Saakashvili regime’s aggression against South Ossetia, as many as 127 US military advisers worked in Georgia,” said Churkin, adding, ”The result — conflict, blood, fear.”
The remarks by Churkin came after the US began sending some 300 military personnel to Ukraine’s western Lviv region to train Kiev government troops from March 5 until October 21.
This is while a bill was introduced to the US Congress on March 3 to give the Western-backed Kiev government one billion dollars in military aid aimed at providing assistance, “including training equipment, lethal weapons of a defensive nature, logistics support, supplies and services, and sustainment to the military and national security forces of Ukraine, through September 30, 2017.”
The Kiev government troops have clashed with pro-Russian forces in the country’s two mainly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine since Kiev launched military operations in April last year to crush pro-Russia protests there. In May 2014, the situation in the two flashpoint regions started to worsen as residents overwhelmingly voted for independence from Ukraine in referendums.
More than 6,000 people have died in the conflict, the UN says. Around 1.5 million people have also been forced from their homes over the past months of turmoil.
The US along with other Western governments accuse Moscow of having a hand in the crisis in eastern Ukraine; however, the Kremlin has repeatedly denied the accusation.
CAH/NN/HRB
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