Russia Accuses US of Launching "Smear Campaign"

Russia accused the United States on Friday of launching a baseless "smear campaign" over its alleged involvement in the conflict in Ukraine and also said that Washington was responsible for the bloodshed.

"Due to the smear campaign against us that the US Administration has begun... we reject the unfounded public insinuations that US deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf is spreading on a daily basis," a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry said, AFP reports.

"There are no facts or specifics about these falsehoods," the statement added. It further accused the United States of essentially trying to "shield their Kiev wards and themselves" by obscuring the "real reasons for events in Ukraine."

Harf had said on Thursday that according to the latest evidence it was clear that Russian troops were firing artillery from within Russia on Ukrainian military across the border. On the other hand, defence officials said that Russia was supplying equipment like rocket launchers to the pro-Russian rebels.

The accusation came in the wake of more  bodies of victims from flight MH17, which was shot down by the rebels in eastern Ukraine, arriving in the Netherlands.

The US believes that the rebels used a Russian-provided SA-11 Buk surface-to-air missile to attack the passenger plane which was carrying around 300 people.

Russia has frequently denied arming the separatists with heavy weapons, but rebel leaders have given conflicting accounts of whether they had control of a Buk launcher at the time the plane was downed, BBC reports.

"We have indications that the Russians intend to supply heavier and more sophisticated multiple-launch rocket systems in the very near future," Col Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday.

Even though time and again Russia has been accused of war-mongering, it has so far tried to show that it has put in efforts to exhibit restraint.