OREANDA-NEWS. Germany bears moral responsibility for Ukraine's future and should therefore sell defence weapons to Kiev. Ukrainian ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk said this in an interview with media group Funke.

"We call on the FRG government to abandon its current position, which is absolutely unnecessary in terms of morality, and urgently provide Ukraine with the necessary defensive weapons. We have the right to self-defence,"- he said.

According to Melnyk, Germany "bears the same historical responsibility for Ukraine as it does for Israel".

Melnyk noted that Berlin's reluctance to provide weapons to Kiev could have a negative impact on the state of relations between Ukraine and Germany. "The refusal of the FRG to supply defence weapons causes huge discontent in Ukrainian society and may have serious consequences for bilateral relations,"- he stressed.

In late December, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock said in an interview with the DPA news agency that Berlin did not intend to supply arms to Ukraine even despite a possible threat from Russia. She stressed that Berlin believes that "further military escalation will not bring more security to Ukraine" and intends to seek a way out of the current situation only diplomatically, through the Normandy format and the OSCE. The German foreign minister stressed that "the violation of international law and Ukraine's sovereignty will have huge political and economic consequences for Russia".

The United States is already supplying defence weapons to Ukraine. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that over the past year Washington had transferred weapons worth $0.5bn to Ukraine. The deliveries will continue in case of aggression from Russia, he stressed.

According to the Axios portal, ahead of the talks with Russian officials in Geneva, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was advised by an expert group to increase arms supplies to Ukraine.