By Bosphorus News Geopolitics Desk
Russia's Foreign Ministry has asked Washington and Ankara to explain a proposed transfer of Türkiye-held, US-origin weapons to Ukraine. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday the deal would cause "serious harm to our bilateral relations with Washington and Ankara."
Zakharova's statement, posted on the ministry's website, followed the US State Department's notification to Congress of a package Bosphorus News detailed on August 13, when the deal's exact contents first became public. She said the documents released by Congress describe a "substantial arsenal" that includes offensive systems, and questioned who initiated the transfer and when the shipment to Kyiv would take place.
The package Türkiye is seeking to send includes 12 M270 multiple launch rocket systems, 70 ATACMS ballistic missiles, more than 2,500 M26 rockets and 47,000 M509A1 artillery projectiles, the bulk of them cluster munitions dating back decades. Human Rights Watch has urged Congress to block the transfer over the risk unexploded submunitions pose to civilians.
Zakharova argued that combining mediation rhetoric with arms shipments undermines trust, pointing to repeated Turkish assurances that Ankara avoids sending lethal weapons to Kyiv.
Neither Türkiye's Foreign Ministry nor its Ministry of National Defense had issued a public response as of Saturday.
Sources: Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Bosphorus News review and reporting.