Russia Seeking Weapons From Sanctioned Countries To Aid War In Ukraine – Nato

Russian forces attacked cities in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine early on December 10, and the Ukrainian military reported fierce fighting. At the same time, Western diplomats warned Moscow that its stocks are running low and it is becoming more and more anxious for weapons.

In his nightly video message on December 9, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy claimed that Russian troops had brought “horror beneath the Russian flag” to his nation.

He described the situation in Bakhmut, Soledar, and Kreminna—three areas where there has been the most fighting—as being “extremely terrible.”

Bakhmut, which had a population of about 70,000 before the invasion, was referred to by Zelenskiy as “another Donbas town that the Russian Army converted into a charred rubble.”

He said there was “no residential space that hasn’t been damaged by shelling for a long time.”

Meanwhile, the United States and the United Kingdom cautioned that Russia was becoming increasingly reliant on Tehran to sustain its war effort as fears persisted of a wider conflict in the 10th month of the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward said late on December 9 that beyond the hundreds of Iranian drones already transferred to Russia since August to “kill civilians and illegally target civilian infrastructure” in Ukraine, “Russia is now attempting to obtain more weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles.”

Woodward also said London was “almost certain that Russia is seeking to source weaponry from North Korea [and] other heavily sanctioned states, as their own stocks palpably dwindle.”

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council later that Moscow had already refuted “on many occasions” Western suggestions that it was being supplied by Iran.