Foreign Ministry Official Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on certain Western countries’ plans to continue the militarisation of Ukraine

Foreign Ministry Official Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
Photo: MFA

Comment by Foreign Ministry Official Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on certain Western countries’ plans to continue the militarisation of Ukraine:

On January 6 in Paris, participants of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, led by the UK and France, signed a declaration titled Robust Security Guarantees for a Solid and Lasting Peace in Ukraine.

The document turned out to be extremely far from a peace settlement. The declaration is not aimed at achieving a lasting peace and security but rather at continuing the militarisation, escalation and further conflict aggravation. Its core element is the deployment of “a multinational force” on Ukrainian territory that the coalition will have to form to contribute to the “rebuilding” of the Ukrainian armed forces and “support deterrence” following the cessation of the hostilities.

The document also includes clauses on further consolidation of Ukraine’s and NATO’s military industrial sectors.

As clarified by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, who signed the corresponding trilateral statement along with Zelensky, London and Paris plan to establish their own military bases in Ukraine post-ceasefire and build weapon and military equipment storage facilities.

The Russian Foreign Ministry warns that the deployment of military units and the setting-up of military facilities, storages and other Western infrastructure on Ukrainian territory will be qualified as foreign intervention that directly threatens the security of Russia and other European countries. All such units and facilities will be considered as legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces. Warnings to this effect have been repeatedly made at the highest level and remain relevant.

We also reaffirm that a peaceful resolution of the conflict is solely possible through the elimination of its root causes, the re-establishment of Ukraine’s neutral non-aligned status, its demilitarisation and denazification, and Kiev’s observance of the language, cultural and religious rights and freedoms, including those of ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking people, and members of ethnic minorities, and through the recognition of the current territorial realities that emerged as a result of the peoples’ exercised right to self-determination. All these goals will, undoubtedly, be achieved either by political and diplomatic means or in the course of the special military operation, in which the Russian Armed Forces are maintaining full initiative on the battlefield.

The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kiev regime are forming a true axis of war. Its participants’ plans are becoming increasingly more dangerous and destructive for the future of the European continent and its residents, who are also forced by Western politicians to pay for such ambitions out of their own pockets.

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