MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday NATO seemed ready to exceed elementary norms of ethics and morality to widen its anti-Russian propaganda in relation to the crisis in Ukraine, stalling chances for peace.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich was commenting on a meeting NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow held last week with a top Ukrainian clergyman.
- Lawmaker: Russian propaganda efforts disproportionate to anti-Russian campaign
- Washington sets tone of anti-Russian propaganda in USA, Moscow draws conclusions
- Slovak president says neither EU nor NATO should send weapons to Ukraine
- US stirring up commotion over fictitious Russian troops as NATO summit getting closer
- NATO expansion is major US miscalculation — Russian envoy
- NATO, US missile defense plans threaten Russian nuclear forces — chief of General Staff
"It seems that the alliance, understanding the futility of ‘traditional’ steps to widen the block’s massive anti-Russian propaganda, is ready to step over any moral and ethical norms, intruding into the ecclesiastical sphere and shamelessly speculating on religious sensitivities," Lukashevich said.
"The mere fact of such a meeting, apart from its ‘military’ content, not only hurts the chances of smoothing over differences and searching for common ground within Ukraine's split society. It may also become a kind of ‘a delayed-action mine’ threatening the peace process in Ukraine on the basis of nationwide dialogue and reconciliation," he said.
NATO’s Vershbow on April 22 met Patriarch Filaret, who heads the Kiev Patriarchate, a branch of the Orthodox Church that broke away from Moscow in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of an independent Ukraine. The two men discussed possible assistance to Ukraine in modernising and reforming its military to strengthen the country's armed capabilities.