Support for Kyiv grows if China supplies arms to Russia: German Defense Minister

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also discussed arms delivery to Kyiv at the summit in Stockholm on Thursday.

Speaking at the summit, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that if China supplies weapons to Russia, support for Kiev will increase even more.

China has denied allegations that it had suggested supplying Russia with weapons. CIA Director William Burns has said that the U.S. was "confident" Beijing is considering supplying Moscow with lethal equipment to support its invasion of Ukraine.

Burns told CBS on February 26 that he did not believe a final decision has been made and that there was no evidence of "actual shipments of lethal equipment." White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told the network that such a move would "come at real costs to China."

'UKRAİNE CRISIS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED'

Hitting back at those claims, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told reporters on the sidelines of China's annual parliamentary meeting on Sunday that Beijing "did not create the crisis...It is not a party to the crisis."

"And it has not provided weapons to either side of the conflict. Why on earth are there blame and sanctions on China? This is absolutely unacceptable," Qin said. "There seems to be an invisible hand pushing for the protraction and escalation of the conflict. Ukraine crisis is a tragedy that could have been avoided."

(Newsweek)