Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has said that the United States is directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. The continual rhetoric about the need to pour more money into Kiev to help it attack Crimea signals America’s direct participation, Antonov told reporters on Wednesday.

Antonov’s comments are in response to an earlier statement by CIA Director William Burns who said that additional funds would allow Ukraine to conduct more “deep penetration strikes in Crimea.” The funding would also help Ukraine continue targeting the Russian Black Sea fleet, and eventually “regain the offensive initiative,” Burns told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Monday.

“The situation has reached a point where some high-ranking [US] officials are saying: we need to help Ukrainians ‘strike deep in Crimea.’ In other words, the direct involvement of the United States in the conflict has been officially recognized,” Antonov stated. He went on to warn that the direct participation of Ukraine’s Western backers in the conflict is “a dangerous course, fraught with the most unpredictable consequences,” not only for the security of the U.S. but for the whole world, according to a report by RT. 

According to Antonov, with this new package the U.S. administration “confirmed the constancy of its disastrous course of prolonging the military conflict in Ukraine.” “The United States does not want to understand the simple truth that no American weapon will stop [Russia’s] special military operation… Its use will only lead to an increase in casualties among ordinary citizens of the post-Soviet republic,” he said.

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Moscow has repeatedly said that it is open to peace negotiations to bring an end to the fighting and insisted that by funding Kiev’s war effort the West is eliminating the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough.

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