UNITED NATIONS, February 28. /TASS/. The crisis in Ukraine was sparked by the West’s disregard for the crimes of neo-Nazis, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Sunday.

"At this point, the focus should be on improving the situation that led to the crisis that we are going through. It did not begin with Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, it was sparked much earlier as for eight years, the West has been turning a blind eye to the crimes of Ukrainian neo-Nazis in Donbass," he pointed out.

Nebenzya stressed that Western countries participating in Sunday’s UN Security Council meeting had "failed to offer a word of compassion to Donbass residents." "It is homes in Donbass, destroyed by Ukrainian troops and nationalists, that Western media outlets are now shamelessly passing off as the consequences of our military operation in Ukraine," the Russian envoy noted.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation based on a request from the heads of the Donbass republics. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans to occupy Ukrainian territories. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that the Russian Armed Forces were not delivering strikes against Ukrainian cities. The ministry emphasized that the Ukrainian military infrastructure was being destroyed by precision weapons and there was no threat to civilians.