Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s answer to a media question about US Defence Secretary’s statements

Question: How would you comment on US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin’s March 15 remarks that “the coalition of countries that are donating Leopard tanks to Ukraine continues to grow,” delivered at the Ramstein online meeting?  

Maria Zakharova: US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin’s statements delivered via videoconference at the so-called Ukraine Defence Contact Group on March 15 are a new indication of Washington’s obsessive determination to continue its total hybrid war against Russia, a war “to the last Ukrainian.”  

Characteristically, while addressing his audience of meekly listening representatives of the satellite nations, Secretary Austin used the pronoun “we,” thus underscoring not only the collective responsibility of the Western “allies,” but also their direct complicity in the US efforts to maintain the combat capability of the heavily depleted Ukrainian army units.

He announced with much pomp that in order to “create momentum on the battlefield” in favour of Ukraine, whose main task, as it seems clear, is to steadily supply cannon fodder, throwing all and sundry to the frontline, they will provide equipment for “more than nine brigades of armoured vehicles,” including “more than 150 Leopard tanks.”

This bravado with elements of self-glorification and an emphasis on the fact that “we” have sustained Ukraine’s “critical capabilities” is intended to be a shot in the arm for the doubtful Europeans and encourage those bursting to go into action against Russia to get directly involved in the conflict, to which the United States has long been a party.

We would like to remind everyone in this connection that the US and Western weapons, as well as mercenaries and US and NATO military specialists have been and remain legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces’ strikes. 

Washington should think about the consequences of its increasingly aggressive actions that are fraught with a direct military confrontation with Russia and a new humiliating defeat akin to the one it has suffered in Vietnam and Afghanistan.