VORONEZH, May 21. /TASS/. Kiev shirks responsibility for the events unfolding on the territory of Ukraine as it refuses to guarantee observance of human rights in the southeastern regions of the country, Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper house of Russian parliament told reporters on Thursday.

"If Kiev doesn’t think these regions are part of Ukraine, let it state its position overtly then, and if it Ukrainian territory then responsibility for what’s happening in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions rests with the Ukrainian authorities and no one else," she said.

She also believes that endorsement of a resolution on denial of guarantees for defence of human rights on the territories swept by the so-called ‘antiterrorist operation’ can be perceived as willingness to recognize Russia’s huge humanitarian contribution, considering the number of humanitarian convoys with foodstuffs and medicines that Moscow has already forwarded to the people entrapped an economic blockade.

Earlier on Thursday, the Verkhovna Rada endorsed a statement on Ukraine’s backdown from the obligations specified by the Human Rights Convention, the international pact on civil and political rights, and the European social charter.

A commentary appended with the statement said that in the wake of impossibility to ensure the full scope of human rights on the territory of the ‘antiterrorist operations’ and pursuant to the ‘objective necessity to rebuff armed aggression on the part of the Russian Federation’, Ukraine needs a provisional backdown on its commitments to human rights within the limits allowed by international agreements.