Lavrov Says Arms Delivery to Ukraine by NATO States Counter EU, OSCE Norms

MOSCOW, January 21 (Sputnik) – The delivery of weapons to Ukraine by a number of NATO members and European Union countries contradict the norms set out by the EU and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

“[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin has said several times that there are no other weapons in Ukraine besides Soviet-made ones, but only up until recently when weapons started being delivered by some of [Ukraine’s] neighbors from NATO and the European Union,” Lavrov said during a press conference in Moscow.

“We believe that delivering weapons to conflict zones contradicts all the codes of the European Union and the codes of the OSCE,” Lavrov added.

After a military operation was launched by Ukrainian authorities against independence supporters in the southeast of the country in April 2014, the West accused Russia of participating in the conflict, in particular, of providing weapons to local militia, a claim that Moscow has repeatedly denied.

In September 2014, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that a number of NATO countries had agreed on delivering modern weapons to Ukraine. Presidential adviser Yuri Lutsenko claimed later that an agreement was reached at the NATO summit in Wales on the supply of weapons from the United States, France, Poland, Norway and Italy. However, the countries subsequently denied the statement.

Proshenko's claim came amid a ceasefire agreement reached on September 5 at a Contact Group on Ukraine meeting in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

NATO has repeatedly said that the organization itself cannot supply weapons and other military equipment to Ukraine. However, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated that NATO would not interfere in the decisions of individual member states regarding such decisions.