MOSCOW, February 10. /TASS/. Rumors proliferating in the media that Russia is allegedly gearing up for an operation to take Kiev is right out of London’s notorious ‘highly likely’ playbook, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told at a press conference following talks with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
"The reproaches against us, put forward by London and other Western capitals, which relate to the fact that we are interfering everywhere - and some kind of cyber war was mentioned once again today - rumors, even in some seemingly established media about the operation that we are preparing with the aim of capturing Kiev and all other cities of Ukraine, or that some kind of coup is being plotted to install a so-called puppet regime in the Ukrainian capital - all this is right out of the "highly likely" series," he maintained.
Lavrov said that he had drawn attention of his British counterpart to the lack of proof about Russia’s alleged involvement in the death of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoning of former GRU Colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia and the incident with blogger Alexey Navalny.
"Today, we spoke a lot about the need to build our work on the basis of facts, otherwise it will be pure propaganda. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard any facts, nor have we heard any reaction to our statement on the need to somehow validate at least some of the accusations addressed to Russia either," he stated.
Lavrov noted that Truss mentioned the Budapest Memorandum between Russia, the United States and United Kingdom, which provided security guarantees to Ukraine as a non-nuclear state.
"This Budapest Memorandum did not oblige Russia, the UK, or the US to recognize the unconstitutional coup carried out by neo-Nazis and ultra-radicals in February 2014," he stressed.
"No one will ever impose on us the need - in violation of all of Russia’s international obligations - to recognize unconstitutional regimes or especially to justify the actions of these regimes aimed at discriminating against the Russian-speaking population and members of other national minorities, which now happens every day, and that includes the Ukrainian regime’s law-making activities with the active support of President [of Ukraine Vladimir] Zelensky," Lavrov specified.
Lavrov added that the Budapest Memorandum was accompanied by a declaration, the signatories of which include not only Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, but France and Ukraine as well. He recalled that the deal required all participants not to allow any violations of the OSCE’s principles, including the principle of respect for the rights of national minorities.
"Ukraine did not give a damn about all this," he concluded.