Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that all the fuss over additional arms deliveries to Kiev pursues the sole goal of stretching out the armed conflict in Ukraine as long as possible.

“In my view, all this fuss over additional deliveries of armaments generally pursues the sole objective of stretching out the armed conflict as long as possible,” Putin said in a fragment of his interview with the Rossiya-1 TV Channel on Sunday.

He stressed that the deliveries of US multiple launch rocket systems to Ukraine changes nothing since Kiev previously had an inventory of these armaments, including rockets of this range, and is simply replenishing its stock.

“There is nothing new about that,” the Russian head of state said. He thus responded to a request to assess the decision on such deliveries.

“These are all multiple launch rocket systems and the Ukrainian army operates similar Soviet-and Russia-made Grad, Smerch and Uragan rocket systems,” Putin said, as quoted by TASS news agency.

The Russian leader pointed out that the range “depended on rockets that are used and not on the system itself.”

“What we hear today and what we understand, these are rockets that fly to a distance of 45-70 km depending on the rocket type. The same is true about Grad, Uragan and Smerch rocket systems that I spoke about. They also have the range of 40-70 km and there is nothing new about that,” the Russian strongman explained. This is why, these deliveries by the United States and some other countries can only be related to the intention to help Kiev make up for the losses of its combat hardware,” Putin said.

Source: Agencies