Russia stresses solution to Ukraine crisis should be peaceful

Russia has stressed that the crisis in Ukraine should be resolved peacefully, as the United States and other NATO countries deploy military personnel and equipment to the country, where government forces are fighting ethnic Russians in the east.

According to Press TV, in a phone conversation with Anne Linde, the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) and Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, Lavrov said Russia was interested in the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis “exclusively by peaceful means,” and stressed that all sides should focus on the implementation of the Minsk Agreement.

The ceasefire agreement was signed between Kiev and Moscow with French and German support in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in 2015, but both parties have on numerous occasions accused each other of violating the ceasefire.

Lavrov voiced concern about the escalation “caused by the transfer of Kyiv’s personnel and weapons to the line of contact” in the volatile Donbass region and accused the Ukrainian military of “regular shelling of the suburbs of Donetsk and Luhansk.”

The Russian foreign minister also expressed hope that “the Swedish OSCE chairmanship-in-office will make the necessary efforts to ensure that Kyiv strictly fulfills its obligations to resolve the conflict.”

Lavrov also called on OSCE to solve the humanitarian problems of the populations of Donetsk and Luhansk by recognizing the economic blockade of the territories, also drawing Linde’s attention to the lack of objectivity in the work of the OSCE monitoring mission in the Donbass.

“In the current situation, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine is required to boost steps to impartially monitor the situation on both sides of the contact line in the Donbass, primarily the deaths of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure,” he said.

Kiev and Moscow have traded blame in recent weeks for a spike in violence in the Donbass, where Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian forces have been fighting since 2014.   

ME