Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday accused the West of trying to disrupt talks between Russia and Ukraine by fueling “hysteria” over alleged war crimes by Moscow forces.
Kyiv and the West say there is evidence that Russia committed war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, including footage and witness statements collected by Reuters and other media outlets. Moscow denies the allegation and has already described the allegations as “monstrously fabricated”.
Without providing evidence, Lavrov said Moscow believed the accusations were timed to derail the negotiation process, which it described as progress after Ukrainian and Russian representatives met in Turkey last week.
“We are inclined to think that the reason is the desire to find a pretext for the interruption of the negotiations,” Lavrov said in a video released by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
In a sign of the current rift between the two sides after six weeks of war, Lavrov said Moscow still insists on demilitarizing and “minority cleansing” of Ukraine and justifying protection for Russian-speaking people in the region, but Kiev denies these are real problems. told.
Ukrainian and Western governments say these demands, put forward by President Vladimir Putin at the beginning of the Russian invasion, are a pretext for an illegal attack on a democratic country.
Lavrov, again without providing any evidence, said Ukraine was “trying to disrupt the negotiation process as a whole” after Western media published the war crimes allegations.
source: Noticias
