The US should not hide behind generalized condemnations of violence when it is openly sponsoring the Kiev government's “terrorist activities,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.
Russian media quoted Michael Carpenter, the US permanent representative to the OSCE, as telling reporters earlier in the day that “the United States condemns any attack on journalists, whatever they may be and wherever they take place.”
Zakharova responded “First of all, this ‘any attack’ has a victim and a perpetrator,” she said in a statement. “The victim is Rostislav Zhuravlev. The perpetrator is the Kiev regime. The US should not be shy to say these names out loud.”
Secondly, one can’t at the same time condemn attacks on journalists and sponsor those who carry them out.
The US is “directly sponsoring the terrorist activities of the gang in Kiev,” Zakharova added, so they can’t “condemn the attacks” carried out by their own means. This was a reference to cluster munitions the Pentagon has recently delivered to Ukraine, citing a shortage of high-explosive artillery shells.
Zhuravlev, a RIA Novosti correspondent, was killed on Saturday near the village of Pyatikhatki in Zaporozhye Region, when Ukrainian forces struck a convoy of press vehicles using US-supplied cluster munitions. Three other journalists were wounded.
Zakharova accused the Ukrainian government of “criminal terror” and predicted that relevant international organizations will turn a blind eye to “this heinous crime,” due to their capture by the collective West. So far, only the UN cultural agency UNESCO has “deplored” the killing of Zhuravlev, without naming the party responsible.
Cluster munitions are banned by more than 110 countries under an international convention adopted in 2008, due to the grave danger unexploded bomblets pose to civilians for years and even decades after their use. Russia, Ukraine and the US are not signatories to the convention, but many NATO members are, and some have protested Washington’s unilateral move.
The US and its allies have sent over $100 billion worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition to the Ukrainian government since hostilities with Russia escalated last year, while insisting they are not a party to the conflict.