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West plays key role in deteriorating situation in Ukraine — Russian diplomats

"They are the ones who promote escalation of the Ukrainian crisis by supplying Kiev with new types of weaponry," Igor Sergeyev said

GENEVA, March 20. /TASS/. Countries of the collective West are the main driver behind the deteriorating situation in Ukraine, the Russian delegation to the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) said in Geneva.

At this point, Ukraine has "turned into a punitive state, which has chosen repression as its main tool of leverage," the delegation’s speaker Igor Sergeyev said.

"Countries of the collective West are playing the key role in the degradation of the situation in Ukraine," he said. "They are the ones who promote escalation of the Ukrainian crisis by supplying Kiev with new types of weaponry."

In his words, these weapons are being actively used "to attack residential buildings, schools, and hospitals as well as to kill civilians."

"Those are war crimes, and NATO countries - whose delegates are so eager to hypocritically theorize about human rights - are complicit in them," Sergeyev continued, adding that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and its head Volker Turk are conniving with them.

The Russian diplomat reiterated that "in breach of its international commitments, the Kiev government has adopted a package of laws aimed at total Ukrainization, permeating all spheres of society." The Ukrainian authorities also "widely resort to censorship and use anti-separatism as a justification for their persecution of public figures, journalists, activists and any dissenting citizens."

In his view, neo-Nazi groups "operate feely all throughout Ukraine, while the vicious practice of forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests has become the norm." Parishioners and priests of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church are also being persecuted, the diplomat added.

The Russian delegation called upon the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council to "abandon their practice of double standards and stop turning a blind eye to the above-mentioned unacceptable developments."

The Human Rights Council is holding its 55th session in the Swiss city of Geneva from February 26 to April 5. Although Russia is not a member of the Council, it participates actively in its meetings.

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