MOSCOW, August 26 /ITAR-TASS/. Since April 1, nearly 775,000 Ukrainian citizens entered the Russian territory, and 190,000 Ukrainians applied for a refugee status in Russia, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says in an interview published by Russian Beyond The Headlines, a supplement to The Daily Telegraph.
“Temporary shelters have been put up in our country to accommodate tens of thousands of refugees,” he said.
Lavrov indicated that the humanitarian situation in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the neighboring country was catastrophic and continued deteriorating.
“More than 2,000 people have been killed and more than 5,000 wounded, many of them children,” he recalled. “More than 200,000 people in Lugansk are deprived of electricity, drinking water and means of communication.”
“There is an acute shortage of food and medicine and growing risk of outbreaks of infectious diseases,” Lavrov said, adding that this assessment is widely shared in the United Nations, including the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and in the Council of Europe.
“Under these circumstances it is crucial to ensure the immediate supply of humanitarian aid to the people of south-eastern Ukraine,” Lavrov said.
“Humanitarian issues must bring together all people who act in good faith trying to alleviate the suffering of people in dire need - especially women, children and the elderly,” he said.