NEW YORK, March 13. /TASS/. A number of UN member countries have changed their position on the Ukrainian issues, and the "chorus of critical voices" has subsided, Russian Ambassador at the UN Vitaly Churkin told TASS on Thursday.
"A year ago, when we started to discuss this topic, debates were very heated," Churkin said. "The chorus of critical voices was very loud then," he added. US, UK and Lithuania are now "trying to maximally increase the critique of Russia’s actions, which is, of course, not constructive and does not create conditions for the [UN] Security Council to have a useful discussion," the diplomat noted. However, among other countries, including Western, "we see transition to a deeper political contemplation about reasons of the crisis and ways out of it," Churkin stressed.
Despite the complicated situation in Ukraine, other international problems are still discussed in the UN in the routine mode, he added. "We worked pragmatically in the framework of the ‘Quintet’ of permanent members of [UN] Security Council, including with Americans, we had close contacts on other issues, and it stays that way. I don’t see any attempts by the Americans to project Ukrainian events on other issues because they are interested in cooperation with us on these issues. And we don’t want to create any difficulties because of our disagreements with Americans," Churkin said.