SELIGER (Tver Region), August 27 (RIA Novosti) — Russia is not interested in Ukrainian government falling into pieces, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.
"We are not interested that a government falls into pieces. What is happening right now in Ukraine, as the International Red Cross has witnessed, is a domestic armed conflict, and that makes us follow those approaches that are encompassed in international law: a ceasefire and beginning of negotiations," Lavrov said.
"We want Russians in Ukraine together with Ukrainians, together with Hungarians, together with Romanians to live like they are used to live. We want them to be respected, and their rights to be respected," he added.
Russian Foreign Minister also stated he saw no need for establishing a special international tribunal to hear war crimes in Ukraine, similar to those established for Rwanda or former Yugoslavia.
"I don’t think that we need to multiply special tribunals for specific countries. We have seen the examples of this, when a special tribunal for former Yugoslavia and a similar tribunal for Rwanda after genocide was conducted. They work, but it seems to me that it would be counter-productive to set tribunals for each and every conflict. There are other international judicial bodies," he said.
Since mid-April the Ukrainian government has been conducting a military operation in the east of Ukraine attempting to suppress independence supporters who had refused to acknowledge the new government that came to power after the coup that took place in Ukraine on February 22.
The fighting intensified dramatically after Donetsk and Luhansk regions proclaimed themselves independent republics.
Thousands of civilians have died as a result of the violent confrontation. Moscow has repeatedly condemned the operation and urged ceasefire to prevent further casualties, sending a humanitarian convoy to the war-torn eastern Ukraine that has delivered about 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid.
