8 months ago
19
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine were "a very dangerous step", especially if donors are "controlling" use of the weapons.
"Delivering arms to a warzone is always bad. Even more so if those who are delivering are not just delivering weapons but also controlling them. This is a very serious and very dangerous step," Putin told reporters.
Several countries, including Germany and the United States, have in recent weeks given the green light for Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia in response to a new offensive launched by Moscow in northeast Ukraine last month.
Putin singled out Germany, saying that when the first German-supplied tanks "appeared on Ukrainian soil, it provoked a moral and ethical shock in Russia" because of the legacy of World War II.
Referring to German authorities, he said: "When they say that there will be more missiles which will hit targets on Russian territory, this definitively destroys Russian-German relations."
Putin repeated that his country "did not start the war against Ukraine", instead blaming a pro-Western revolution in 2014 which was followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea and a Moscow-backed separatist rebellion in the east of the country.
"Everyone thinks that Russia started the war in Ukraine. I would like to emphasise that nobody in the West, in Europe, wants to remember how this tragedy started," Putin said.
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