MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/. Ukraine has the right to exist on condition that it "releases" the people who have determined their own fate in referendums, and whom the Kiev regime is trying to destroy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News in an interview.

"Ukraine has the right to exist, provided that it ‘releases’ people. People they call ‘terrorists’, ‘individuals,’ who have decided in several referendums in Novorossiya, in Donbass, in Crimea that they belong to Russian culture. And the government that came to power as a result of a coup has set itself the primary task of destroying everything Russian," the minister said.

"Democracy is when people have the opportunity to vote. People have voted and expressed their opinion.".