MOSCOW, April 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia will insist on respect to the Geneva accord on Ukraine and will strongly denounce attempts to distort it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a forum of young diplomats in the Russian capital on Friday.

"We will insist on the fulfillment of the Geneva agreements and prevent attempts to distort them," Lavrov noted, adding that there "should not be any unilateral demands, but attempts were made to present them to us."

“To make claims to us that we have allegedly signed in Geneva something that delegitimises actions of current authorities is a lie,” the minister noted.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov plans to speak by telephone with US Secretary of State John Kerry later this Friday to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Addressing a forum of young diplomats on Friday, the minister said he also planned to discuss with his US counterpart the fate of Pavel Guberev, elected in Donetsk as "people's governor" and currently held in custody.

The Foreign Ministry said earlier that telephone contacts between Lavrov and Kerry planned for April 23 and 24 did not take place, for reasons beyond Moscow's control.

Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement that Ukrainian law enforcers had allegedly seized several Russian security agents was "not serious talk",  Sergei Lavrov said.
“Kerry has said many times that Ukrainian security services had captured several Russian security agents. So, show them to people, show them on television,” Lavrov added.

 

Puntitive action and a crime in Ukraine

What current Kiev authorities are doing today is a punitive action and a crime against their own people, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

“The so-called Easter ceasefire was disrupted,” the foreign minister said, noting that “What Kiev authorities are doing today is just a punitive operation which already resulted in many victims. These are bloody crimes for which they will be held responsible".

The West wants to take control of Ukraine being guided only by their geo-political ambitions, he added.

“It is high time for Western partners to admit the truth that they do not have a monopoly for truth,” the minister noted, adding that “And this is unacceptable to make a certain picture of current events as the West want it to be. The West wants to take control of Ukraine guided only by their geo-political ambitions.”

“Today it is impossible to conceal the truth. And attempts to do so lead to nothing good,” Lavrov said.

If current Kiev authorities really begin to fulfil the Geneva accord, take away Maidan protesters and disarm Ukrainian ultranationalists from Right Sector their opponents in south-eastern Ukraine will take reciprocal steps, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes

“Stop to violence should be a first step,” the minister noted.

He noted that this meant an immediate stop to army’s actions against their own people.

 

To defuse the tense

Russia will do everything to defuse the tense situation in Ukraine, Sergei Lavrov said.

Those who are currently in power in Kiev are to blame for the escalation, he noted.

"Maidan" remains in Kiev, and nobody intends to leave it, he said.

"Instead of car tyres, concrete blocks are placed there now, and nobody intends to disperse," the minister said. "Instead of disarming the Right Sector and other radicals, Americans rebuke us.

"If we want to talk about actions, it should be remembered who started the escalation," Lavrov added. "Escalation was started by the current authorities in Kiev, who carried out the coup d’tat.

Russia will not use ultimatums in seeking to achieve goals from events in Ukraine, Lavrov said. “Certainly, we do not have such a heavy-handed discipline which exists in NATO and the European Union, though there are some opinions there that are different from the common position,” the minister said, adding that “We prefer not to act through ultimatums within the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)...We are decent people, after all.

“When a resolution on Ukraine was moved in the UN General Assembly, Americans and Western Europeans, primarily Americans, sent their emissaries throughout the world. There was not a single country where they had not knocked at with a demand to support compulsorily this Ukrainian resolution. In fact, this is not a resolution on Ukraine, but an anti-Russian one,” Lavrov said.

Crimea's example

Abkhazia and South Ossetia were not planning to follow Crimea's example, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a forum of young CIS diplomats on Friday.

When asked about it, the minister said he had not heard there was such intention.

"Abkhazia and South Ossetia are our partners, and we will respect the way they have chosen," he said.

Lavrov added he would meet with the Abkhazian and South Ossetian foreign ministers later on Friday.