Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused NATO of being a party to the conflict in Ukraine by supplying arms to forces in kyiv, as the Moscow offensive entered its second year.

“They are sending tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine. This is really a participation,” Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 channel broadcast on Sunday.

“This means that they take part, albeit indirectly, in the crimes of the kyiv regime,” said the Russian president.

Western countries, he further asserted, have “one goal only: to destroy the former Soviet Union and its main part, the Russian Federation”.

“Only then will they perhaps accept us into the so-called family of civilized peoples, but only separately, each part separately,” he added during these statements made. on the sidelines of a patriotic concert on Thursday, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again promised on Sunday that his country will recover Crimea, a peninsula annexed in March 2014 by Moscow. A declared desire that has raised fears of an escalation of the conflict.

“Nine years ago, Russian aggression began in Crimea. By recovering Crimea, we will restore peace. This is our land and our people, our history,” Zelensky said on Telegram.

The US State Department for its part hailed in a statement “Ukraine’s efforts (…) to draw global attention to the ongoing Russian occupation”.

“The United States does not and will never recognize the so-called Russian annexation of the peninsula,” he added.

In an interview published Sunday in the newspapers of the German regional press group Funke, the number two in Ukrainian military intelligence Vadym Skibitsky said that Kiev was preparing a new counter-offensive for the spring.

“One of our strategic military objectives is to try to drive a wedge into the Russian front in the south” of the country, towards Crimea, he said.

“We won’t stop until we get our country back to its 1991 borders. This is our message to Russia and the international community,” Skibitsky added.

He also considered possible Ukrainian bombardments against military sites in Russia, in particular in the border region of Belgorod, already targeted on several occasions.

Ukraine has been insisting for months that the West should supply it with long-range missiles and fighter jets.

02/26/2023 15:05:29 –         Moscow (AFP) –          © 2023 AFP