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Western donors in no hurry to help residents of Ukraine's east — Russian diplomat

The Russian Foreign Ministry's special envoy for the supremacy of law and human rights says efforts to assist people in Ukraine should continue

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Western donors are in no hurry to help residents of Ukraine's embattled eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions while their efforts in other areas are much more efficacious, Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's special envoy for the supremacy of law and human rights said on Thursday at a session of a committee for public support to the population of southeastern Ukraine that was hosted by the Federation Council, the upper house of Russian parliament.

"Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross are visiting people in detention and facilitating the search for those listed as missing," Dolgov said. "These areas of activity are crucial if you take account of the data on the people kept in custody without investigation or trial, which is very unrewarding for Kiev."

"The Red Cross adds to the aid granted by the authorities of the [self-proclaimed] Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and appropriate NGO's and we believe the vital efforts to assist people in Ukraine should continue, particularly via the channels of international organizations," he said.

"But international donors are somehow reluctant to unstring their purses and help the Ukrainians, and particularly the ones who live in the southeast of the country," Dolgov said. "Frankly speaking, Western donors' efforts are much more productive along other geographic azimuths."