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UN report on human rights in Ukraine biased, not objective — Federation Council speaker

Russia's Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko says she is no more surprised by double standards and politicized assessments of some countries and international organizations

© EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY

KEMEROVO, June 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia's Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko believes the report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about the situation in Ukraine is absolutely biased and unjust.

"An absolutely biased and absolutely politicized report. We consider the report unjust and not objective," Matviyenko told reporters on Thursday.

"We just can't stop wondering how it is possible not to hear and not to see what is obvious. How it is possible to say white is black and black is white. How it is possible to prepare a report that is so one-sided," Matviyenko said, noting that there was no need to travel to Ukraine to prepare such a report. Apparently, there were meetings only with the Kiev authorities, she said.

Matviyenko noted that the OSCE chairman, for example, had met with families who had fled combat zones. "He felt everything. It was seen from his reaction that he felt the grief, troubles and sufferings from what was happening in Ukraine," she said.

"We are not surprised any more by double standards and politicized assessments made not only by some states, but international organizations that are greatly influenced by them (some states)," the speaker noted, referring to the OHCHR.

The third report of the OHCHR monitoring mission in Ukraine was published on Wednesday, June 18. It covered the period from May 7 to June 7. The report said the human rights situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions deteriorated in the past month and, with the government forces' more intensive operation, led to more casualties.

The OHCHR mission was set up in March to collect information about possible violations of human rights. It numbers 34 people. The mission has representatives in Kiev, Lviv, Odessa, Donetsk and Kharkiv.

Russian Foreign Ministry official Alexander Lukashevich said in his comment on Wednesday that the OHCHR report had no objective assessment of crimes of Kiev, that has been carrying out combat actions against the civilian population, and ignored deaths of civilians in the military operation in Donbass.

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Ukraine crisis Ukraine United Nations Human rights Valentina Matviyenko

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