PRETORIA, January 23. /TASS/. Russia is not targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, and all the damage to it is the result of the criminal actions of Kiev, which is deploying both heavy weapons and air defense systems in residential neighborhoods, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference following talks with South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor on Monday.

"We are not targeting civilian infrastructure. There is a lot of confirmation of that. Everything that is happening in terms of damage to civilian infrastructure in Ukraine is due to the criminal actions of the Kiev regime, which has for months been purposefully placing both heavy weapons and air defense systems in residential areas," he said.

With this in view, he mentioned former Ukrainian Presidential Aide Alexey Arestovich who admitted that a projectile downed by Ukrainian air defenses triggered the partial collapse of a residential building in Dnepropetrovsk, resulting in multiple fatalities.

"There are very few cases in the Western media in which we are accused of the deliberate use of armed forces against civilian infrastructure. But every such case is invariably used for days-long, if not weeks-long speculations about how bad the Russians are," the top diplomat said.