Flags of fascist and far-right Svoboda and UPA outside Parliament in Kiev

On Congress’s insistence, Russia’s so-called annexation of Crimea and funding of the so-called “terrorist separatists” in the Donbass is another military flashpoint. NATO has been conducting provocative war exercises in all countries bordering Russia and beefing up deployments of US and UK troop and armaments there. Russia has been obliged to respond in kind. On Christmas day 2017 Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that Moscow has made no decision concerning the supply of defensive weapons to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the wake of Washington’s decision to approve lethal arms supplies to Kiev.

On December 22, US Department of State Spokesperson Heather Nauert said that Washington had decided to provide Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities as part of our effort to help Ukraine build its long-term defence capacity, to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to…