MOSCOW, May 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is making the greatest effort to help resolve the Ukrainian crisis as the recent release of OSCE monitors in eastern Ukraine clearly shows , Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday.
"We are doing the maximum to normalize this situation,” Ryabkov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
“You have witnessed how the situation with the release of the military observers from the OSCE countries was resolved. It wouldn’t have worked out without the mediation of [Russian Presidential Special Envoy] Vladimir Lukin,” the diplomat stressed.
“But the [Western] partners, instead of making concrete steps, confine themselves to throwing accusations at Russia, and we constantly hear "howls" about sanctions. It doesn’t help the cause," Ryabkov said.
A bus carrying seven members of an OSCE observer mission in Ukraine and five Ukrainian military officers was seized by pro-federalization protesters in eastern city of Slaviansk on April 25. People's mayor of Slaviansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said the monitors and Ukrainian military officials who accompanied them were detained on suspicion of “espionage.”
Russian Presidential Special Envoy Vladimir Lukin was sent to southeastern Ukraine for talks on freeing the foreign military observers. On Saturday Lukin delivered the OSCE observers to Donetsk where they met with representatives of the Council of Europe. Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland and OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier thanked the representative of the Russian President for his role in the observers’ release.
