The United States is carrying out a “proxy war” against Russia and the risk of a “clash” between the two countries is “high,” Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US stated on Friday, December 23.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 claiming it wanted to demilitarize and de-‘nazify’ the country, Ukraine and the West say Russia’s aim of invasion was to do an imperial style land grab and change the regime of Volodimir Zelensky.
Since the invasion, the US has contributed more than $18.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. In total, NATO countries have so far provided some $40 billion in weaponry to Ukraine, roughly the size of France’s annual defense budget.
Now Russia’s ambassador to US, says the US is fighting a proxy war against Russia using Ukraine.
“Today, no one hides the true goals of the White House policy towards us. On all TV channels, political commentators talk about the need to intensify the US proxy war against the Russian Federation,” Antonov said in an interview with Russia state media outlet TASS published Friday, December 23.
“Let me remind the viewers that a proxy war means an agent’s war, a war by proxy. Actually, this is what the Americans are doing on Ukrainian territory,” he added.
“We emphasize that the risk of a clash between the two great powers [Russia and the United States] is high.”
Russia will continue “to strive to ensure that Russian concerns regarding the security of our country are not ignored but are heard with the prospect of working together to resolve them,” he added.
Antonov also said that dialogue between Moscow and Washington is currently in an “ice age” state.
“The [Russian] embassy is still forced to work in an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust,” Antonov said.
“Due to the fault of the local ruling circles, obsessed with the idea of fixing the image of an ‘international outcast’ for us, the state of the Russian-American dialogue is comparable to an ice age,” he said.
Antonov also said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the US demonstrates that neither Washington nor Kyiv “is ready for peace.”
“Zelensky’s visit here, the conversations in Washington showed that neither the administration nor Kyiv is ready for peace,” he said. “The focus [is] on war, on the death of ordinary soldiers, on further tying the Ukrainian regime to the needs of the United States.”
