The situation has in the background Nuland’s statement that Washington supported Ukraine’s attacks on military facilities in Crimea, which she called “legitimate targets.”

“[This] once again underlines the depth of our differences, underlines perhaps the role of the US as the main provocateur of existing international tensions,” Peskov stressed.

According to him, Nuland belongs to a “very broad camp of the most aggressive hawks in US policy.”

In addition, commenting on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s initiative to hold talks involving Russia and the US, the spokesman stressed that there is still no readiness nor openness to peace initiatives on the part of the collective West.

Crimea seceded from Ukraine and rejoined Russia after holding a referendum in March 2014 in which an overwhelming majority of voters – over 96% – endorsed that option. For Kiev, it is a territory under temporary occupation; for its part, Moscow maintains that the inhabitants of Crimea voted democratically and in full compliance with international law and the UN Charter, and that the matter is definitively settled.

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