Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov incited hatred against NATO in two interviews overnight. In an interview with Chinese news agency Xinhua on Saturday morning, according to Russian agencies, he accused the military alliance of preventing the end of the “special operation” through political agreements and arms deliveries.
In an interview with the Arabic-language channel Al-Arabiya, Lavrov also said that Russia knows the routes by which the West wants to deliver weapons to Ukraine. The delivered weapons are now expected to become the target of what the official Russian side calls a “special operation” “as soon as they reach Ukraine’s territory”.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi caused irritation with information about a mass grave. The IAEA reported the resumption of communications in Chernobyl. In Berlin, Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk thanked the German media for their coverage of the war.
Negotiations are slow
Negotiations with Kiev on a draft agreement to end the war are not going well, according to Lavrov: they are also being undermined by “militant rhetoric and inflammatory actions by Kiev’s Western supporters”. However, the Russian side is in favor of continuing the negotiation process.
According to Ukrajinska Pravda, Zelenskyy said there was a high risk that Kiev would break off negotiations with Moscow. He again called for direct negotiations with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. The first negotiations to end hostilities began four days after the Russian invasion on 24 February.
Lavrov: Not at war with NATO
Russia does not see itself at war with NATO. Instead, NATO believes it is at war with Russia, Lavrov said, according to Russian agencies. Also, Russia is not threatening nuclear weapons, the Western media has hyped this up. “We are not ‘playing’ with a nuclear war,” Lavrov said. In late February, Russia put deterrent weapons on alert, which was understood worldwide as a threat to the nuclear arsenal.
Lavrov also claimed that the Russian military was doing “everything in their power to avoid civilian casualties”. Ukraine, on the other hand, reports civilian casualties every day. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recently put the number of civilians killed at 2,899, but the actual numbers are considered to be considerably higher.
Irritation about Zelenskyy’s information about the mass grave
In an interview, Zelenskyy spoke of a new mass grave with 900 dead in the Kiev region. His spokesman and the police denied. “On April 29, a total of 1,187 bodies of Russian army victims were discovered in the Kiev region, probably the president meant this total number when he spoke of more than 900,” said a commentary by Kiev region police. . Presidential spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov also stressed in the online newspaper Ukrajinska Pravda that the president meant the total number.
After the withdrawal of Russian troops almost a month ago, the discovery of civilians, some of them tied up, who had been shot, caused horror across the world, especially in the Kiev suburb of Bucha. Moscow has denied all the allegations.
IAEA: Russian nuclear experts in Zaporizhia
Russian authorities sent nuclear experts to Ukraine’s nuclear plant in Zaporizhia, in the southeast. The eight representatives of Rosenergoatom, which belongs to Russian state-owned Rosatom, are demanding daily reports from the station’s management on “confidential matters” related to the operation of the nuclear plant, according to a statement from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), citing Ukrainian officials.