MOSCOW, November 17. /TASS/. The Kiev regime seeks to distract attention from its course towards dismantling the Minsk accords on settling the conflict in southeastern Ukraine by drumming up various sorts of scaremongering about the alleged Russian threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference on Wednesday. 

"As I understand it, it is also an obvious fact that the Ukrainian authorities and personally President [of Ukraine Vladimir] Zelensky have embarked on a course towards disrupting the Minsk accords and sabotaging all that they undertook to fulfill and they are implementing this policy with the outright connivance of their patrons in Berlin, Paris and Brussels," Russia’s top diplomat said.

"Considering the problems that exist in Ukraine today, we see the Kiev regime’s undisguised desire to distract attention from the course towards dismantling the Minsk Package of Measures by instigating various sorts of scaremongering, including the alleged Russian threat," Lavrov pointed out.

The Kiev regime turns to Berlin and Paris "with a call to protect" it and turns to NATO "with a request to send troops to defend a free and democratic Ukraine," holds talks with Great Britain to agree "on creating some naval bases," Russia’s top diplomat said.

"And some official, I do not remember his name, has claimed that the launch of the Nord Stream 2 [gas pipeline] will be tantamount to declaring Russia’s war against Ukraine," Lavrov went on to say.

"And all these thoughts and calls by the hot heads, unfortunately, find support, in particular, among Western participants of the Normandy format," he said.

As Russia’s top diplomat recalled, following the results of their meeting, the foreign ministers of Ukraine, France and Germany came up with a statement where they highlighted key points based "exclusively on Kiev’s stance" and threatened Russia "with some terrible consequences," if Moscow "continues creating a threat to Ukraine’s security."

"It is clear that Zelensky is not averse to provoking some incidents with the intent that, as Ostap Bender [the main character of the famous Soviet satirical novel The Twelve Chairs] used to say, abroad will help us," the Russian foreign minister said.

Russia’s top diplomat said, however, he was confident that Western experts "who are somewhat in the know and follow developments" understand the real situation well.

"And I sincerely think that our colleagues, the heads of diplomatic agencies in most EU countries also understand all this well. The point is that once they have taken part in this Russophobic project based on the anti-Constitutional coup d’·tat and supported it, they now find it difficult to depart for the positions of the truth and an impartial review of what is taking place," the Russian foreign minister said.