Russian Foreign Ministry Cites US Secret Arms Transfers as Reason for Ukraine Demilitarization

"Russia has been talking about this for many years. About the US and the UK's pouring arms into Ukraine, endless NATO exercises in the Black Sea violating Russian borders and the dangerous rapprochement of military aircraft of Western countries with civilian aircraft in the airspace of our country ... Actually, that is why one of the objectives of the special military operation is the demilitarization of Ukraine and ensuring the security of our country," Zakharova said.

"If you look at the trajectory of the conflict, because we saw it coming, we were able to make sure that not only were we prepared and allies and partners were prepared, but that Ukraine was prepared. We made sure that well before the Russian aggression happened, starting in September and then again December [2021], we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defend themselves, things like Stingers [air-defense systems], Javelins [antitank weapon systems] that were instrumental in preventing Russia from taking Kiev," Blinken said.