BERLIN, August 18 (RIA Novosti) — Moscow has called on Washington to use its influence on Kiev to stop the fratricidal war and violence in eastern Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
"We are sending a signal to that [the US] influences the Ukrainian authorities and is able to stop this fratricidal war and the beginning of a negotiation process," Lavrov said.
Lavrov said that unlike Ukraine, Russia has lived up to the previous Berlin agreement of July 2, which said there would be observers and Ukrainian border guards at the Russia border crossings, but only in a situation when a ceasefire is in place.
"Ceasefire has not been achieved. Of course it's a two-way street, and our colleagues from Kiev complain that they cannot talk to representatives of the militia. But when you are constantly under bombardment, for example, in Luhansk, it is very hard to communicate. So, the United States can actually influence Kiev in this regard," the foreign minister said.
Negotiations between Sergei Lavrov and Pavlo Klimkin were held Sunday night at the Villa Borsig hotel in Berlin, Germany. The talks were also attended by German foreign chief Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French counterpart Laurent Fabius.
The meeting of the foreign chiefs was the second four-party meeting of the kind. During the previous talks on July 2, also in Berlin, the four foreign ministers agreed on a declaration that called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine’s southeast.
Kiev launched a special operation in eastern Ukraine in mid-April to suppress independence supporters who refused to recognize the legitimacy of its new authorities. Moscow has repeatedly urged Ukrainian authorities to immediately stop the punitive operation and seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
According to a report by the mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly 1,400 people have been killed since the special operation in eastern Ukraine began, while about 117,000 of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes and cross into neighboring Russia in search of shelter.
