The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday that Russia rejects accusations made by the US that it allegedly supported the 2019 offensive on Tripoli led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who is the Commander-in-chief of the Libyan National Army (LNA)
Zakharova said at a briefing: “Russia has been an active participant in international efforts to resolve the armed confrontation between the east and west of Libya since the beginning and has done so in various international arenas. We are communicating with all Libyan parties, urging them to stop the fratricidal feud. We reject insinuations that our country allegedly supported the Libyan National Army’s offensive against Tripoli in 2019.”
Zakharova added that it was Washington that “committed overt armed aggression” against the Arab country through the NATO intervention in 2011. Zakharova noted that after the intervention, “the United States actually withdrew for a long time from resolving the crisis that had arisen from its own fault”.
In Libya, there is an ongoing confrontation between the Government of National Accord (GNA), which controls Tripoli and the territories in the west, and the LNA which cooperates with the parliament sitting in the east. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that efforts in Libya should aim at restoring the country’s sovereignty and statehood.