NATO has been engaging in a “proxy” war against Russia in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
She stressed that the alliance has been "strengthening the Kiev regime's belief that its war crimes and cruelty towards civilians all across Ukraine will be left unpunished".
"It is becoming more evident that, although dismissing its direct participation in the conflict, NATO is practically fighting against Russia on Ukraine's side and by using Ukraine's people", Zakharova said in a statement published on the ministry's website.
The spokeswoman added that by sending more and more weapons to Ukraine, NATO contributes to the prolongation of the conflict.
The US and its NATO allies have already provided Ukraine with some 25,000 anti-aircraft systems, and Washington is considering a new arms package for Kiev, US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said. He added that Ukraine has already received 60,000 anti-tank systems. The EU has also joined the list of arms suppliers to Ukraine, having agreed upon a package of military aid worth $1.1 billion.
In its statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry also pointed to the fact that the alliance has been routinely turning a blind eye to the crimes of the Kiev regime.
"Jens Stoltenberg recently avoided commenting on Russian prisoners of war tortured and killed by Ukrainian militants. He said he knew nothing about that. Or maybe he just does not want to know... However, he spoke much about 'the tragedy in Bucha’, saying that once Russian forces leave Ukrainian towns, ‘mass graves and new evidence of atrocities and war crimes’ will emerge. These are double standards that are apparently shared as a common value by the West", the ministry's statement says.
Earlier this week, the Ukrainian authorities distributed a video allegedly filmed in the town of Bucha, outside Kiev, showing corpses lying along the road. The mainstream media in the West quickly shared the video, accusing Russia of "war crimes". However, many people on social media questioned the credibility of Kiev's accusations against Moscow, noting that there is no blood on the ground near the bodies, and also pointing to the fact that some of the dead people had white armbands on their sleeves and they could have been killed by Ukrainian security forces or by so-called territorial defence militants.
Moscow strongly dismissed the allegations, describing them as "another production of the Kiev regime for the Western media". Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia called the footage a forgery, repeatedly stressing that Ukrainian radicals have been regularly abusing civilians and Russian prisoners of war.