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If the United States and Russia are waging a media war over Ukraine, then CNN may have scored its own goal on Monday.
“Obama considers arming pro-U.S. troops,” read the lower third of a CNN segment discussing the latest developments in the troubled easten European nation.
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#CNN called #Ukrainian army "pro-US troops". Oops. pic.twitter.com/8ArAJiJPTr
— Russia Direct (@Russia_Direct)
febrero 10, 2015
The “pro-U.S. troops” referred to the Ukrainian government forces, which are battling a separatist movement in the east. The separatists have long been described as pro-Russian rebels, though Moscow has denied providing any military support to the groups fighting for independence from Kiev.
Russian media quickly jumped on the line, with RT describing it as possibly a “Freudian slip.”
While the White House claimed in late 2014 its only interests are safeguarding “security and stability,” critics of U.S. foreign policy have long argued the Ukrainian conflict is the result of NATO expansionism.
“The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West,” prominent political scientist John Mearsheimer wrote in a Foreign Affairs article in late 2014. Around the same time the article went to press, Washington pledged US$291 million in new aid to the Ukrainian government, including non-lethal military supplies such as body armor and vehicles.
Earlier on Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama hinted he may consider sending arms to Kiev.
"It is true that if, in fact, diplomacy fails, what I've asked my team to do is to look at all options," Obama said during a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov hit back, telling Russia's RIA news agency that any Western arms deliveries to Ukraine would only exacerbate the conflict.
"Russia is a country that is truly interested in resolving this crisis. All the other plans to strengthen the sanctions regime, isolation, the delivery of weapons etc. - they are all steps which, unfortunately, on the contrary are aimed at destabilizing the situation in Ukraine," Peskov said.
