UNITED NATIONS, March 14. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s ambassador to UN Vitaly Churkin, has told the UN Security Council that all those who disagree with the current authorities in Kiev, including parliament members, are exposed to threats of violence.

He added that as a result of that, the country’s legally elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown and had to leave Kiev under a threat to his health and live.

“That forcible overthrow of authorities was illegitimate,” Churkin said. “Such actions have been repeatedly condemned in documents adopted by the UN Security Council. Instead of a government of national unity envisaged in the February 21 agreement, Kiev saw the emergence of what Mr. Yatsenyuk has described as a ‘government of winners’.”

Churkin recalled that a number of posts in that government, including the defense minister post, are now taken by representatives of the radical nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party.

“In the resolution adopted in December 2012 the European Parliament slammed that party’s views as racist, antisemitic, xenophobic and running counter to the fundamental principles and values of the European Union. Also, it called upon the pro-democratic parties in the Ukrainian parliament to refrain from entering into coalitions with that party,” Churkin recalled. “Where are the European values? Do the new authorities in Kiev profess them?”

“The new authorities in reality rely on a far more radical organization — the so-called Right Sector, whose leader has already declared his presidential ambitions,” Churkin said. “The radicals have not disarmed themselves in defiance of the February 21 agreement. Moreover, they have been building up their arsenals from the army depots they have raided.”

“The new authorities have done nothing to arrange a national dialogue in order to carry out a genuine constitutional reform,” Churkin said. “In fact, the authorities in Kiev are cutting the country in halves.”