Chechen Official Vows To Arm Mexico If U.S. Gives Weapons To Ukraine
By RFE/RL
A senior Chechen official has said that Russia will provide arms to Mexico if Washington supplies weapons to Ukraine.
Chechen parliament speaker Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov said the arms would be aimed at reigniting U.S.-Mexican disputes over “territories annexed by the United States in the American states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and part of Wyoming.”
“We will perceive arms shipments to Ukraine as a signal to respond in kind,” Abdurakhmanov said in a March 24 statement posted on the Chechen parliament’s website.
Abdurakhmanov is a close associate of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed strongman who rules the Russian region.
Prominent American lawmakers have called on U.S. President Barack Obama to supply Ukraine with weapons they say will allow Kyiv to protect its territory against Russian-backed separatists.
The Obama administration has resisted the calls, saying the move could result in greater bloodshed between Ukrainian forces and the separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people since April 2014.
Three Killed After Bus Hits Mine In Eastern Ukraine
Three people have been killed in eastern Ukraine after the bus they were riding in struck a land mine.
Officials said the bus was traveling from Artemivsk, a town controlled by government troops, to Horlivka, in a separatist-held area northeast of the city of Donetsk.
According to reports, the bus struck the mine when the driver tried to go around a checkpoint.
The wounded, numbering at least seven, were taken to a hospital in Artemivsk.
Elsewhere, President Petro Poroshenko was on hand at Kyiv's international airport to oversee a shipment of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, including 10 Humvee vehicles.
In total, Washington plans to send 200 regular Humvees, radios, countermortar radars and other nonlethal equipment worth $75 million.
U.S. President Barack Obama has so far refused to heed calls from Congress to send defensive arms and ammunition to Ukraine.
Based on reporting by AP and dpa
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