ALMATY. May 31 (Interfax) - Western countries are escalating and dragging out the armed conflict in Ukraine by providing weapons and intelligence to Kiev and by training the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said.
"Everything is being done to drag out the armed conflict in Ukraine. Thus, military-technical, financial and humanitarian assistance worth over $278 billion has been provided to Kiev since February 2022," Belousov said at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Council of Defense Ministers in Almaty on Friday.
"The West is urgently stuffing the country with weapons, providing it with intelligence data, training Ukrainian servicemen and recruiting mercenaries," he said.