NEW YORK (UN). Dec 19 - Arms supplies to Ukraine by the United States and Canada escalate tensions and lead to additional casualties, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Pyotr Ilyichev said at the UN Security Council's meeting on light and small arms.
"The pumping of U.S. and Canadian means of war into Ukraine is prompting the latter's administration, which has been sabotaging the Minsk Agreements, into new reckless military actions," Ilyichev said.
"We'd like to recommend that everyone who is lobbying and making such decisions to think about their responsibility," he said.
"Everyone should realize it is impossible to settle the Donbas conflict by force, and those who arm the killers will share the responsibility for human deaths," Ilyichev said.
He thus commented on the readiness of the Canadian government to allow national companies to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine and a U.S. company's confession that it is already shipping grenade launchers to Kyiv.
The United States is delivering those weapons with the 'off-record' consent of the Department of State and the Pentagon, while U.S. officials say no decision to supply lethal weapons to Kyiv has thus far been made, Ilyichev said.