Updated 4:53 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday called on all countries to take a candid stance on the conflict in Ukraine and realize that independence supporters should not be blamed for everything.
“Possibly, all countries must assume a candid approach to the Ukrainian issue and understand that accusing the self-defense forces of everything while supporting the Kiev government’s every whim has no prospects,” he said.
In April, Kiev authorities launched a military operation in southeastern Ukraine, where independence supporters refused to accept the new government which came to power as a result of the February coup.
On September 5, a ceasefire agreement was reached between Kiev authorities and the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR). The agreement was signed in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, at meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine, which comprised representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
On September 19, a memorandum was drawn up by the Contact Group to include nine provisions specifying the ceasefire, which include the creation of a 30-kilometer (18-mile) buffer zone, withdrawal of all heavy weapons from residential areas and the deployment of an OSCE monitoring mission in southeastern Ukraine.
Both the Kiev forces and independence fighters have been accusing each other of violating the ceasefire. According to DPR Prime Minister Andrei Purgin, 26 people were killed and 50 others were injured as a result of a recent shelling in Donetsk. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has confirmed that one of its delegates to Ukraine, Swiss citizen Laurent DuPasquier, was among the victims of the shelling.
