MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Russian military would have long been on TV screens, had it been really present in the embattled south-east of Ukraine.
“First of all, whenever we are accused of hundreds or thousands of Russians fighting in the east of Ukraine — with modern technologies, with the creativity of mass media this could have been on the screens long ago,” Lavrov said in an interview with France 24 television channel.
“Whenever I hear this, I challenge my interlocutors to show it on TV,” he said. “I discussed this with John Kerry a few days ago in Rome, and we would have nothing against the truth being shown on the screens.”
Lavrov held a bilateral meeting with US Secretary General John Kerry in Italy’s Rome on December 15. The meeting, which was held behind the closed doors and lasted for over three hours, ended late on Sunday night. There was no press briefing following the meeting of the top Russian and US diplomats.
The West repeatedly stated about alleged Russian military’s presence in the embattled southeastern regions of Ukraine and Moscow repeatedly denied the allegations.
Kiev’s military operation designed to regain control over the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk regions in Ukraine’s southeast on the border with Russia, which call themselves the Donetsk and Lugansk People's republics, has left thousands of people dead, brought destruction and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.