The United States supplied “a lot of weapons” to Ukraine in the years before the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev began in February 2022, outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has sais.
He made the remarks while speaking on the New York Times’ ‘The Interview’ podcast, aired on Saturday. Blinken said the US saw the conflict between Russia and Ukraine “coming” and wanted to get Kiev “prepared” for it.
“Starting in September and then again in December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defend themselves – things like Stingers, Javelins that they could use,” he said.
He said the has provided weapons have proven “instrumental” in “preventing Russia from taking Kiev,” as well as “rolling over the country, erasing it from the map.”
Blinken’s remarks received a poor reception in Moscow. Senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik suggested the revelations somewhat undermined the usual narrative about the supposedly “unprovoked Russian aggression.”
“Pumping [Ukraine] with weapons for an attack on Donbass and Russia, isn’t that a pretext for the special military operation?” Miroshnik said in a Telegram post.
