MOSCOW, July 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Foreign Ministry may publish a new edition of its “White Book” on human rights violations in Ukraine, the ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law Konstantin Dolgov said Thursday.
“We see the possibility of publishing one or two more ‘White Books.’ Everything will depend on the situation. We hope that it will not be necessary, but unfortunately there no guarantees. The situation doesn’t give us these guarantees,” Dolgov said while speaking to the Federation Council. “We hope a breakthrough will come soon, though at the moment people keep dying,” the commissioner added.
Dolgov also noted that on June 27, Russia finished the second volume of its “White Book” on human rights abuses in Ukraine.
“The White Book is intended to draw as much of the international community’s attention as possible to the facts of human rights abuses in Ukraine that it mentions," Konstantin Dolgov said in a statement in late June.
“This document will be sent to international human rights structures and institutions, as well as to relevant non-governmental organizations so that they are finally shown an unbiased approach to the crimes committed in Ukraine," the statement reads.
The second edition covers the period from April to mid-June 2014.
In May, Russia’s Foreign Ministry published a “White Book” that described the most heinous human rights violations perpetrated by Kiev in Ukraine’s east from late November 2013 to the end of March 2014. Moscow sent the book to the UN and the OSCE and called on them to carry out an investigation.
Since mid-April, Kiev authorities have been conducting a special military operation in the east of Ukraine to suppress the pro-independence movement. The violence intensified after the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics declared independence from Ukraine in May. Hundreds of people, including civilians have died in both regions over the past months.
Moscow has described the ongoing military action as a punitive operation and called for an immediate end to the bloodshed.
