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Moscow, March 20. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Ukrainian crisis was caused by the West’s policy towards Russia, when he realized that the country would not comply with his orders.
“This is not about Ukraine. It is the culmination of the course the West has taken since the early 1990s, after it became clear that Russia would not obey and has its own opinion,” the foreign minister told the Leaders of Russia competition.
He stressed that the Eurasian nation and its people have their own history, traditions and vision of how to ensure their security and interests in the world.
In his speech, the head of Russian diplomacy stated that the pledges of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenskyy not to support neoNazis differ from his actual actions.
“To great sadness and shame, President Zelenskyy asks how he can be accused of being a Nazi if he is of Jewish descent, and he says this in the days when Ukraine defiantly left the agreement protecting monuments to the heroes exit the Great Patriotic War within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States, he said.
Lavrov finds it very difficult to take the policies of the Ukrainian leadership seriously when his president personally encourages such tendencies.
He expressed his hope that the military operation in Ukraine will end with the signing of comprehensive documents containing an agreement on the country’s neutral status with security guarantees.
He reminded that Moscow has submitted its security proposals to the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but the West has not responded to the points related to Ukraine and this organization.
“Against this background, when the bombing was already beginning, which was clearly intended to prepare for combat operations in Donbass, we had no other way to protect the Russian people in Ukraine,” he warned, referring to the Russian military operation.
The foreign minister also described the priorities set by Moscow as part of the operation as “legitimate”.
In an informational speech on the start of the operation on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the goal is to protect the people of Donbass from the abuses and genocide in Kyiv over the past eight years and to ” demilitarize”. and to “denazify Ukraine.
He later referred to the need for the Ukrainian authorities to recognize the reunification of Crimea with Russia and to introduce guarantees of military neutrality for this state. (Text and photo: PL)