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Russia’s ambassador to UN hopes Geneva deals on Ukraine will be implemented

MOSCOW, April 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, said Tuesday he hopes the Geneva agreements on Ukraine will be implemented.

“We would not like the situation in Ukraine to go overboard,” Churkin told the Rossiya 24 TV channel in an interview. “No one needs a big crisis turning into a military conflict.”

“With all their [Western partners’] periodical adventurism, they realize that peace is rather fragile now, and there is too much crisis, too much tension in different parts of the planet,” the diplomat stressed. “They don’t need the appearance of a new serious crisis, with unobvious consequences for them.”

Churkin said “this allowed our [foreign] minister Sergey Lavrov to bring [our partners] to the working out of the Geneva document at the four-party talks in Geneva. All this gives a certain hope that the document will be implemented”.

“Of course, it would be naive to suppose that all this will happen fast,” he added, though.

The Geneva Statement, adopted after last Thursday’s meeting on Ukraine that involved Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine, in particular envisions that all illegal armed formations should be disarmed in Ukraine, all administrative buildings unblocked and all protesters except for those who committed serious crimes pardoned.

Ukraine saw a coup and new people were brought to power amid riots in February, whom Moscow does not recognize as Ukraine's legitimate leaders.

The crisis deteriorated when Crimea, where most residents are Russians, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the self-proclaimed Ukrainian leaders and reunified with Russia on March 18 after a referendum two days earlier in which it overwhelmingly voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.

After Crimea’s accession to Russia, protests against the new Kiev authorities erupted in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking southeastern regions, with demonstrators taking control of some government buildings and demanding referendums on the country’s federalization.

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Ukraine crisis Foreign policy

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