According to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia is “very concerned” about the increased shelling in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow – According to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia is “very concerned” about the increased shelling in eastern Ukraine. Weapons that are banned under the Minsk peace plan are being used, Lavrov said in Moscow on Friday. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also noted increased violations of the agreed ceasefire.
The Ukrainian government troops, equipped with weapons and ammunition by the West, face the Russian-backed separatists there. The sides blame each other for the violence.
Lavrov accused the Ukrainian government of sabotaging the Minsk peace plan. At a meeting with his Greek colleague Nikos Dendias in Moscow, he criticized the OSCE for not naming Kiev as the initiator of the violence. There is also shooting from the separatist areas.
According to UN estimates, more than 14,000 people have died in the conflict over the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, which has been going on since 2014, most of them in the areas controlled by the separatists. The West sees Russia as responsible for the violence in eastern Ukraine.
In an interview with Russian state television, Lavrov once again said that Moscow had no plans to invade Ukraine. It is about Western “propaganda, fake news and made up”. “The main thing is that the authors of these fakes themselves believe in what they say. They like that,” Lavrov said. “It will make you laugh.”
US President Joe Biden had repeatedly warned of an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia, on the other hand, has been accusing the United States of hysteria for weeks. Lavrov wants to meet his US colleague Antony Blinken in the coming week. The date and location have not yet been determined. (dpa)
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