Calling Crimea 'Legitimate Target' for Strikes Shows US as Instigator of Tensions, Kremlin Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The recent statement of US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland that labeled Crimea as a legitimate target of Ukrainian strikes underscores the depth of disagreement between the United States and Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

"This once again highlights the depth of our disagreement, demonstrates, I think, the role of the United States as the main instigator of the international tensions that we have," Peskov said in an interview for a Russian political show.

Peskov also pointed out that Nuland "belongs to a very broad camp of the most aggressive 'hawks' in American politics," adding that "this is a point of view that we know well."

Peskov also said there could be no talk of bringing the Russian and US presidents to a negotiating table, as suggested recently by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, as long as the "collective West" showed no willingness to compromise.

"We heard Washington say that [Joe] Biden will not make any stopovers during his trip to Poland. The collective West has shown no sign of being ready to any peace initiatives," he said.

Earlier in the week, Nuland said that Ukraine will not be considered safe by the collective West unless Crimea is at least demilitarized and that the US supports Kiev massively hitting Russian military installations in Crimea as it considers them to be legitimate targets.

US President Joe Biden is set to travel to Poland from February 20-22 to meet with Polish and NATO officials.