UNITED NATIONS, January 31. /TASS/. The United States is seeking to mislead the world community about the real state of things around Ukraine and the reasons for the current outburst of global tensions, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia said on Monday.
"In its explanatory note to the initiative to call today’s meeting, the US delegation said it considers the deployment of Russian troops on Russian territory as a threat to international peace. It is not only inadmissible interference into the domestic affairs of our country but also an attempt to mislead the international community about the real situation in the region and the reasons for the current global tensions," he said at a UN Security Council meeting on the situation around Ukraine.
"As a matter of fact, they suggest we call a Security Council meeting over wild guesses and ungrounded accusations that we have repeatedly refuted," he noted.
"Apart from that, the open format suggested by the United States, along with the extremely provocative topic, makes this meeting a classical example of megaphone diplomacy, playing to the gallery we have repeatedly called to drop," the Russian diplomat said. "We don’t think it will help consolidate the Council. On the contrary, we fully understand that our American colleagues’ zeal to fan hysteria around their own allegations about Russia’s aggressive plans using the UN Security Council among other means puts our Security Council colleagues into an embarrassing situation. This hysteria is no less harmful for Ukraine, whose president [Vladimir Zelensky], as you might have heard, has recently asked the Western countries to stop whipping up ungrounded hysteria around the deployment of Russian troops at the border as this fuss is harming the Ukrainian economy. ‘We don’t need this panic,’ Mr. Zelensky said. But it looks like it is in the interests of those who are hyping up the topic of a mythical Russian threat."
He recalled that several high-ranking officials in Kiev have been saying in public in recent weeks that there is no threat to Ukraine from Russia. The Ukrainian authorities "say it clearly that they see no such activities" that the United States is speaking about, Nebenzia stated.
The Russian diplomat called on his colleagues to stop using the UN Security Council as a tool "to realize the West’s propaganda stances" and "reiterate their commitment" to resolution 2202, which is "an international legal basis for the Ukrainian settlement." He slammed the United States initiative to call this meeting of the UN Security Council as a "provocative proposal."
Recently, Western and Ukrainian media outlets have been echoing claims about Russia’s possible aggression against Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier slammed such statements as "empty and groundless" and their goal is to whip up tensions. He stressed that Russia doesn’t pose any threat to anyone, but did not rule out possible provocations to justify the remarks in question and warned that attempts at using force to settle the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have the most serious consequences.