Russia warns West over arming Ukraine

By Stefan J. Bos 

The Kremlin on Thursday condemned the West for providing massive military support to Ukraine. 

The outburst came as the secretary-general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance would back Ukraine for years to come because the war could drag on. 

Moscow warned, however, that sending heavy weapons to the troubled nation threatened security on the European continent. 

Russia's foreign ministry singled out Britain for criticism, saying it was “encouraging Ukraine” to attack Russia within Russian territory. 

Ukraine claims it needs arms to respond to the ongoing Russian invasion of the country in which tens of thousands of people died.

It also accuses Moscow of using natural gas and trade as a weapon after state-run firm Gazprom cut supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, members of the NATO military alliance. 

Emotional UN Chief

The tensions came while United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited a mass grave and other sites of destruction near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv left behind by retreating Russian forces. “I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running away in panic," the U.N. chief told reporters in Borodianka, a ruined town northeast of the Ukrainian capital. “The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil," he stressed in emotionally charged comments. 

In neighboring Bucha, where dozens of bodies in civilian clothes, some with their hands tied behind their backs, were discovered, Guterres backed an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into possible war crimes. “I appeal to the Russian Federation to accept, to cooperate with the ICC.”

Guterres spoke before meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

The U.N. chief, who earlier met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, made clear he wants to help organize humanitarian evacuations in the besieged city of Mariupol. 

With fighting ongoing, Pope Francis has repeatedly called for disarmament and to accept the peace offered by Christ. The pope said “a decision for peace” should replace what he called “the flexing of muscles while people are suffering.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that more than 5 million people were already forced to flee Europe’s worst conflict since the Second World War.