MOSCOW, November 26. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said in a documentary aired on Saturday that Ukrainians deserve friendly relations with their Slavic brothers and will be liberated from neo-Nazi rulers.

"The Ukrainian people will be liberated from neo-Nazi rulers. It deserves to live in good neighborliness, friendship, prosperity next to its Slavic brothers," he said in the film aired by the Rossiya-24 television channel.

On February 24 Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in Ukraine in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. The West subsequently imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia and stepped up the shipment of weapons to Kiev, which are worth billions of dollars.