MOSCOW, January 26. /TASS. Russia sees Kiev’s attempts to disrupt the peaceful process in Ukraine and considers them futile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
“We see the attempts to disrupt the peaceful process, Kiev’s attempts to resolve the problem through the use of force to suppress the south-east of Ukraine,” he said.
It is naive to expect militia’s conciliatory rhetoric amid Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s decrees, the foreign minister noted. “It would be naive to wait for some peaceful rhetoric from the other side, to wait that militia forces will take no action when under the Ukrainian president’s order, their cities, residential sites and civil objects are shelled from heavy guns, artillery and multiple rocket launch systems and to wait that they will just reconcile themselves to the fact that they will be crushed by bombardments,” the minister said.
Russia is in favor of dialogue between Ukraine's conflicting sides without "second thought," Lavrov stressed.
The Ukrainian peace process should be revived, and Moscow is making efforts to this end, Lavrov emphasized. “We are convinced that the peace process needs to be revived and necessary efforts are being taken for this purpose, primarily to start a long-expected direct dialogue between Kiev and self-defense militia,” Lavrov said.
Contacts between Kiev and Donbas militia representatives are expected to take place in the next few days, the foreign minister said. “We are trying to facilitate the contacts,” Lavrov said.
The tragedies in Ukraine are used to stir the anti-Russian hysteria but common sense should prevail, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.
He said that these tragedies, including the MH17 crash, "are used to pervert the truth" without waiting for results of unbiased investigations, Lavrov said.
Keeping Ukraine economy afloat
Russia has been exerting much effort for keeping the Ukrainian economy afloat, despite ttempts to present it as an aggressor and “enemy of the Ukrainian people,” Lavrov said.
“We’ve been doing a lot for keeping the Ukrainian economy afloat somehow — by supplying natural gas and not demanding the repayment of the Ukrainian debt to Russia,” he said.
“Kiev has hurled accusations at us, calling us the Ukrainian people’s enemy, but Ukrainian are fleeing the atrocities of war first of all to our land,” Lavrov added.