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Russian official accuses US of fueling Ukraine crisis

349524_Sergey Glazyev-senior adviserThe US government has been accused by an advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin of funding and arming what he described as Ukrainian militants.

Concurrent with the US official’s visit to the capital city of Kiev, President Putin’s economic advisor Sergey Glazyev described the situation in Ukraine as an attempted coup on Thursday, adding that Moscow enjoyed legal grounds to intervene in the country’s crisis.

“According to our information, American sources spend $20 million a week on financing the opposition and rebels, including on weapons,” he told the Ukrainian edition of Russian newspaper Kommersant.

“We have information that the militants are briefed on the territory of the US Embassy, that they are being armed. Of course it is unacceptable, this has to be looked into,” he said.

Glazyev referred to the so-called Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances dating back to 1994, adding that Russia had legal grounds to intervene in the crisis.

“According to this document, Russia and the United States are guarantors of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and frankly speaking they are obliged to intervene when such conflicts arise,” Putin’s advisor pointed out.

Ukraine has been rocked by anti-government protests since two months ago after Yanukovych refrained from signing the Association Agreement with the EU at the third Eastern Partnership Summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on November 29, 2013.

Protesters are seeking nothing less than President Viktor Yanukovych’s resignation, despite the fact that the president has given some concessions to the opposition parties.

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