PRESS RELEASE

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U.S. Envoy Volker Says U.S. Could Arm Ukraine; State Department Says Not So Fast

July 26, 2017 (EIRNS)—Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for the Ukraine conflict, told the BBC yesterday that the U.S. is considering sending arms to the Kiev regime.

"Defensive weapons, ones that would allow Ukraine to defend itself, and to take out tanks, for example, would actually help" stop Russia threatening Ukraine, he claimed.

"I’m not, again, predicting where we go on this. That’s a matter for further discussion and decision. But I think that argument that it would be provocative to Russia or emboldening of Ukraine, is just getting it backwards,"

he added. He said success in establishing peace in eastern Ukraine would require what he called a new strategic dialogue with Russia.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Heather Nauert walked back Volker’s threat.

"We are not there yet," she said during her regular briefing, yesterday.

"Let me take out the word ‘yet.’ We are not there. The United States has not provided defensive weapons nor have we ruled it out to provide to the Ukrainians."

Not surprisingly, the Kremlin contradicted Volker on his assertion that the U.S. supply of weapons to the Kiev regime would not be provocative.

"We have already said more than once that any action which escalates tension ... and further aggravates the already complicated situation will only move us further and further away from the moment of settling this internal issue of Ukraine,"

Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday.