UNITED NATIONS, April 30. /ITAR-TASS/. The current Kiev regime, encouraged by the “Western friends” is pushing Ukraine towards a catastrophe, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Tuesday at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

“The Kiev regime, encouraged by the Western ‘friends,’ is persistently pushing the country towards a catastrophe,” he said.

According to the diplomat, it is clear from the statements and actions of the Kiev authorities that they are not going to fulfil the agreements, reached at a meeting in Geneva on April 17. He recalled that just several days after the meeting “there was the resumption of the so-called ‘antiterrorist,’ and in essence a punitive operation.” “Some 15,000 troops, tanks, artillery, planes, units of the Right Sector were sent to the southeast of Ukraine,” the Russian ambassador to the UN said.