ISTANBUL

A senior Russian lawmaker on Sunday accused Western nations of using Ukraine as a training ground to test their weapons.

“Today, Ukraine is a training ground for Washington and NATO to test their weapons and test out new ways of waging war,” Vyacheslav Volodin, head of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, said in a Telegram post.

The West has no regard for the lives of Ukrainians and views them as disposable, he added.

Volodin claimed that US personnel are present on the ground in Ukraine.

“All this indicates Washington’s direct participation in the hostilities,” he said, adding that the US is fearful of losing control of its “colony.”

Russia’s “special military operation” has become a means of “liberation for the citizens of Ukraine and the Slavic lands from the American colonizers,” he said.

Volodin accused the US and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government of depriving people of their political rights and freedoms, cracking down on the opposition and media, and persecuting the Orthodox Church.

The US has “looted” Ukraine as it “has always done this with its colonies,” he added.