A Kremlin spokesman reminded Russia's republic of Chechnya that it is illegal for Russian regions to send weapons abroad, after the Chechen parliament threatened to supply arms to Mexico for it to fight the United States.
The Chechen parliament made the statement in response to a U.S. congressional resolution that called for sending lethal military aid to Ukraine.
“Such statements cannot be approved by Moscow because individual Russian regions cannot send such equipment abroad,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency Thursday.
U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine would be interpreted as a signal to send "the most modern weapons to Mexico" for the resumption of discussions on the legal status of "U.S.-annexed territories that now house … California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and a part of Wyoming," Chechnya's parliament speaker, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, said Tuesday in an online statement.
Mexico ceded these territories to the U.S. under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, a peace deal that ended the Mexican-American War. In exchange, the U.S. agreed to pay $15 million to Mexico and to assume another $3.25 million in debt owed by the Mexican government to American citizens.
The remaining parts of present-day New Mexico and Arizona were bought by the U.S. for $10 million under a separate purchase in 1853.
"We reserve the right to conduct conferences in Russia, Mexico and the U.S. to raise the question of breaking away the above mentioned states from the U.S., and [about] supplying weapons to resistance fighters there," said the Chechen statement, which was published on the local legislature's website.
Abdurakhmanov was responding to a resolution overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week that urged President Barack Obama to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine to help it protect its territorial integrity from pro-Russian separatists in the east.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is known for his militant statements in support of the federal government and President Vladimir Putin in particular. He has also repeatedly claimed that the West is trying to foment chaos and destabilize Russia.
Contact the authors at newsreporter@imedia.ru and i.nechepurenko@imedia.ru
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