Pyongyang, January 27 (KCNA) -- Kim Yo Jong, vice-department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, issued the following press statement on Friday:

The U.S., which has exposed the whole continent of Europe to the grave danger of war and caused big and small concerns, is now further crossing the red line.

It has made a "special contribution" to instigating the unstable world crisis to be continued by providing Ukraine with a large amount of military hardware. It recently made public that it would supply its MBT to Ukraine, only to make clearer its confrontation stand against Russia.

Lurking behind this is the U.S. sinister intention to realize its hegemonic aim by further expanding the proxy war for destroying Russia.

The world would be brighter, safer and calmer now, if it were not for the U.S.

The U.S. is the arch criminal which poses serious threat and challenge to the strategic security of Russia and pushes the regional situation to the present grave phase.

I express serious concern over the U.S. escalating the war situation by providing Ukraine with military hardware for ground offensive, and strongly denounce it.

The U.S. and other Western countries are wrecking the global peace and the regional security while handing military hardware running into astronomical sum of money over to Ukraine in total disregard of Russia's concern about security. Therefore, they have neither right nor justification to slander sovereign states' exercise of the right to self-defense.

The U.S. is mulling mobilizing the military potentials of its top-class stooges on the anti-Russian front, to say nothing of those of the Western countries.

The Ukrainian battlefield is by no means a desert in the Middle East where the U.S. MBTs went on the rampage 20 years ago.

I do not doubt that any military hardware the U.S. and the West boast of will be burnt into pieces in the face of the indomitable fighting spirit and might of the heroic Russian army and people.

No matter how desperately the imperialist allied forces may try, they will never weaken the heroic stamina of the Russian army and people with high patriotism, stubbornness and strong mental power.

We will always stand in the same trench with the service personnel and people of Russia who have turned out in the struggle to defend the dignity and honor of the state and the sovereignty and security of the country. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche112.1.27.)