Ukraine
News
Statement by the Foreign Ministry on the developments in Ukraine’s southeast
Tension in Ukraine's southeast has again sharply escalated. The offensive launched by the Ukrainian forces and their on-going shelling of peaceful cities and villages, add to the growing civilian death toll and cause enormous damage to the infrastructure of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. All this is taking place against the backdrop of militarist statements made by Ukrainian leaders, in conjunction with their more frequent visits to the zone of the so-called anti-terrorist and, in fact, punitive operation and a new wave of mobilisation. Also, this has somehow coincided with the arrival in Kiev of the commander of the US ground forces in Europe. Meanwhile, we haven't heard a single criticism of the Ukrainian "hawks" from western partners. At the same time, instead, we are witnessing an increasing number of statements calling for additional sanctions against the Russian Federation.
On January 29, the EU Foreign Affairs Council is scheduled to hold an emergency session in Brussels, which, in all probability, instead of discussing ways of resolving the conflict, will again focus on unconditional support of any demands put forward by Kiev.
There is growing sentiment that the West is seeking to replace an earnest political process aimed at finding a long-term solution to the Ukrainian crisis, with tactics principally focused on cynically manipulating facts and making emphasis on biased statements and high-profile media outlets' actions. Instead of conducting serious investigations into numerous tragic events like the crash of the Malaysian passenger airliner, the massacre in Odessa in May 2014 or the barbaric shelling of central Donetsk in January 2015, efforts are being stepped up to fuel hysteric propaganda in order to "prove" that the self-defence forces' are "to blame" for what has happened and to completely justify Kiev.
Neither Washington, nor Brussels has bothered to press the Ukrainian authorities to stop shelling cities and villages in Donbass, while instead cynically referring to these criminal acts that take away the lives of elderly people, women and children, as the right to self-defence. Similarly, the West has turned a blind eye to Kiev's blockage of the southeast, despite the fact that the UN humanitarian agencies, Physicians without Borders and other nongovernmental organisations have all been ringing alarm about a looming humanitarian disaster.
The only way to prevent further human sufferings and overcome the deep crisis of the Ukrainian statehood is to force Kiev to engage in serious dialogue with the Lugansk and Donetsk people's republics to find a political compromise that must be fixed in a constitutional reform that would suit all parties involved.
We hope that western partners will eventually begin to exert good influence on Kiev's policy to promote a peaceful solution to the crisis.
Russia, for its part, will continue to do all in its power to achieve this goal for the sake of peace and stability in Ukraine.
