MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko should neutralize those who want to plunge Ukraine into civil war again, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday.
"I already said during meetings with European ministers and my Ukrainian counterpart: everyone understands that Pyotr Poroshenko has quite serious opposition, moreover, toughly radical opposition that demands to praise Stepan Bandera [Ukrainian nationalist leader during World War Two]," Lavrov said in an interview with Vesti Weekly TV program.
"Now Dmitry Yarosh [leader of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist organization banned in Russia as an extremist group] has become a counsellor for the supreme commander-in-chief, I.e. for Pyotr Poroshenko as I understand," the Russian foreign minister said.
"This is the person who said back on March 1, 2014 that a Russian person would never speak Ukrainian, respect the Greek-Catholic faith and glorify Bandera. He said this with regard to Crimea and so, as he put it, there must be no Russians in Crimea," Lavrov said.
"First of all, this is the message sent to Crimean residents and other Russian-speaking Ukrainian residents before the story of the so-called ‘separatism’ began. Secondly, he will now give advice to the president of Ukraine. And all the same, it is said that Poroshenko has opposition and he must take into account the sentiments in the Verkhovna Rada and of coalition partners," the Russian foreign minister said.
"I believe that if Pyotr Poroshenko is a ‘president of the peace’ and he held really sincere talks on the Minsk document, he must safeguard his rightness and thus neutralize those who want to plunge Ukraine into civil war again," Lavrov said.
"But so far, he tries to outdo these radicals in their field. In this case, one can climb the fence, from which it will be very difficult to get off," the Russian foreign minister said.