The radicals are keeping peaceful civilians hostage underground, using children as human shields. Russia demands that Kiev orders the neo-Nazis who have taken over the Azovstal steelworks to release people and stop fighting. The head of our Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov spoke about this in an interview with the Italian television outlet Mediaset.
The situation in Ukraine was expectedly the main topic of conversation. The minister reminded us that the West had been trying to divide Moscow and Kiev long before 2014. It encouraged the Ukrainian authorities’ persecution of the Russian-speaking population, our media and church, and endorsed laws to promote Nazism.
Mr. Lavrov said that Russia has launched a special operation to protect the people of Donbass, while Ukraine is attacking with impunity its own citizens who disagree with its criminal policies.
Lavrov said: ‘The Tochka-U missile strikes in recent weeks have targeted the center of Donetsk, the passenger railway station in Kramatorsk, and a number of other locations, including Kherson. These attacks are clearly aimed at terrorizing the civilian population and preventing the inhabitants of these regions from deciding their own fate. The vast majority of people there are tired of the oppression they have suffered all these years from the regime in Kiev, which is becoming increasingly influential now that it is supported by neo-Nazis, the USA, and their closest allies. Those who came to power as a result of this bloody coup have started a war against their own people, after they had started a war against everything Russian: banning the Russian language, Russian education, and Russian mass media.”
Lavrov stressed that was that the USA and Canada were actively training neo-Nazi units, which have joined the ranks of the regular Ukrainian army.