MOSCOW, November 15. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday described the fact that Berlin reacted to the existence of Ukraine’s notorious Mirotvorets (or Peacekeeper) doxing website only after it included Germany’s ex-chancellor to its lists as regretful.
"Are we glad that Berlin has finally spoken out on this matter? Yes, we are," she said, adding that the fact that it was done for "timeserving reasons" was regretful.
"We noted the Federal Foreign Office of Germany commented on the inclusion of Germany’s ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to the database of the Mirotvorets website. Germany has finally admitted that something is wrong about this website, and that it would be good if it stops functioning. Once again, I would like to say that Berlin made this comment only after Mr. Schroeder was included into its databases," he said.
The spokeswoman added that Russia has repeatedly raised the issue of closing the website, which is "engaged in absolutely unlawful activities."
"We have called on the Western nations to exert due pressure on the Kiev government with an aim to have this illegal activities against the media stopped. However, as reality shows, our Western partners simply turn a blind eye to the crackdown on dissenting media outlets. They react only when they become a target themselves," Zakharova went on.
"We would like to see our Western colleagues taking permanent and consistent - and not incidental - efforts to make the Ukrainian regime comply with the norms of the international law and the obligations that Ukraine had undertaken," she added.
Mirotvorets website
On November 9, it became known that Germany’s ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been placed into the ‘database’ of Mirotvorets in its so-called ‘Purgatory’ section for "attacking Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity," "manipulation of publicly important information" and "anti-Ukrainian propaganda."
To prove its point, the website quoted Schroeder as saying that the Ukrainian government is fighting a war against Donbass. One more reason why he has been added to the list is his criticism of the EU’s policy on Ukraine. "The European Commission’s leadership doesn’t have the slightest idea of how deeply Ukraine is split in cultural terms and that it cannot be treated as it used to be," the Mirotvorets doxing website cited him as saying. According to the German ex-leader, the EC initially made a huge mistake by offering Ukraine an association agreement with the EU, which basically made Kiev choose between them and Russia," Schroeder was quoted as saying.
Furthermore, the German ex-chancellor told Aachener Nachrichten that he recognized Crimea as part of Russia. "This is a reality, which we will need to recognize sooner or later. Besides, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 gifted Crimea, which had previously belonged to Russia, to Ukraine, then a Soviet republic. He thought that Soviet communism would live as long as the Catholic Church. Luckily, it didn’t," Schroeder stated.
Mirotvorets calls itself a database, which includes people who allegedly help Donbass, but in fact, it publishes personal information of reporters, artists and politicians, who’ve visited the Crimea or Donbass, or just didn’t fit the liking of the website’s administrators for some reason. The Mirotvorets website doesn’t have any official status, but Ukrainian border guards don’t let people on the list enter the country.