MOSCOW, July 9 (RIA Novosti) – There are grounds to suspect Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are withholding information about crimes committed in southeastern Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.
“There are more than enough reasons to suspect Ukrainian law enforcement structures of concealing the facts,” the Russian top diplomat told reporters after meeting his Italian counterpart Federica Mogherini.
On Tuesday, Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko said Russian lawmakers will promote a White Book that compiles human rights violations in Ukraine during the conflict, the second edition of which was issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry in late June.
The book covers the period from April to mid-June 2014 and talks about the tragic events in Odessa, where more than 70 people died in a fire after clashes between independence supporters and nationalists early May, as well as an airstrike on a Luhansk administration building that killed eight, and other deadly instances of violence over the past months.
The first edition of the White Book was published in Russian and English in May and described the most heinous human rights violations perpetrated by Kiev in Ukraine’s east between late November 2013 and the end of March 2014. Moscow sent the book to the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Kiev authorities launched a special military operation in the east of Ukraine in mid-April in a crackdown on the independence movement. 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 has repeatedly called on Kiev to put an immediate end to the bloodshed. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has also urged the international community to intervene and investigate the crimes against humanity that occurred in Ukraine in recent months.
