RIYADH, September 9. /TASS/. None of the peace initiatives on Ukraine seek to protect the rights of Russian speakers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
He made the statement after he attended a meeting of the Strategic Dialogue Between Russia and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf.
"I am bringing to your attention the fact that not a single initiative, I am not even talking about [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky right now, but not a single initiative, including those put forward by our good colleagues, well-meaning partners, not a single one of these initiatives concerns problems affecting the rights of people that speak Russian on the lands that Zelensky regards as his own. And I spoke on this subject today with my counterparts from Brazil and from India because they show a certain interested approach, which we understand, toward making efforts to overcome the crisis," he said.
According to Lavrov, the root of the conflict in Ukraine was a crackdown on the rights of Russian-speaking residents by the Kiev regime following the coup in 2014.
"The Russian language is currently banned by law in all life spheres. In education, in the media, in art, culture and even in everyday life. And in addition to these laws, a law on essentially shutting down the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has just been adopted and signed by Zelensky," the minister said.
He said he told his counterparts from friendly countries the key problem was that "people were declared terrorists just because they did not accept the coup and refused to obey the putschists" who announced a policy for the annihilation of all things Russian and the expulsion of Russians.
According to the minister, Russian is discussing this issue with China, among other countries.
"Without a look at the root of this problem, nothing will work. And in this regard, of course, we have a very positive attitude to the well-known initiative of [Chinese] President Xi Jinping, the initiative on global security, which states that consideration of any conflict should be started from the root causes that were at the beginning of this or that conflict situation. This fully applies to the Ukrainian crisis. Only by understanding the root causes one can eliminate them for sure," the minister said.