UNITED NATIONS, August 3. /TASS/. Russia definitely rejects accusations of "unprovoked aggression" against Ukraine, a high-ranking Russian foreign ministry's official said on Tuesday.
"We would like to definitely reject all accusations against us of ‘unprovoked aggression’ against Ukraine that have been voiced. Kiev’s current regime rose to power in a coup and straightaway raised persecution, later an armed struggle against the Russian-speaking population of Donbass. During eight years Ukrainian nationalists were killing civilians on this territory almost with impunity and preparing a major military entry into republics that had virtually separated from Ukraine," deputy director of the ministry’s non-proliferation and arms control department Igor Vishnevsky said at the Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
"That said, having signed the Minsk accords that were the only way to bring peace to this land, Kiev’s authorities were even not going to implement them," the diplomat noted, adding that "Russia’s actions became a forced response to atrocities there."
Moscow also rejects insinuations about threatening with nuclear weapons and acting to undermine physical nuclear security in Ukraine, he said. "We will provide our detailed response on insinuations about allegedly threatening with nuclear weapons and acting to undermine nuclear and physical nuclear security in Ukraine later," Vishnevsky said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation, after which the US, EU states, the UK, as well as some other states, imposed sanctions against Russian persons and legal entities, as well as sped up arms supplies to Kiev.