Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow plans to submit to the UN Security Council a draft resolution on the stabilization of the situation in Ukraine on Monday, The Voice of Russia reported.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow plans to submit to the UN Security Council a draft resolution on the stabilization of the situation in Ukraine on Monday, The Voice of Russia reported.
"As to the measures that need to be taken to halt the violence in Ukraine, I am convinced that everyone should focus on unconditional fulfillment of the Geneva statement of April 17 and the so-called roadmap based on its basis by the president of Switzerland as chairperson of the OSCE," Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow on Monday.
"To achieve the fulfillment of these documents, both of which begin with a demand to halt any violence, Russia plans to submit to the Security Council a draft resolution today," the minister said, Interfax reports.
In its draft resolution on Ukraine for the United Nations Security Council Russia proposes to create humanitarian corridors in the east of this country.
"This draft resolution will contain a requirement to immediately create humanitarian corridors that will help civilians leave hostility zones, should they wish so," Sergei Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow on Monday.
At the same time, Lavrov criticized the way the Western media are covering the crisis in Ukraine.
"We are very concerned about what is going on. People die every day and civilians suffer increasingly. The army, combat aviation, and heavy weapons continue to be used against them. Residential quarters are under fire, and all these things can be watched virtually live," he said.
"Unfortunately, most Western media keep silent about this information and show different pictures. For example, I was amazed when I watched several editions of Euronews in a row where not a single word was said about Ukraine," Lavrov said.
Lavrov also said the forecast of the Western countries, which promised stabilization of the situation in Ukraine after the presidential elections, did not eventuate.
"Our Western colleagues convinced us for a long time that the situation in Ukraine would calm down immediately after the presidential elections in Ukraine. Everything is the other way round," he said.
"We want the SC to require that civilians be allowed to leave and humanitarian aid delivered to the hostility zones freely. We consider it a matter of principle to reaffirm in the SC decision the validity of the Geneva conventions and other norms of international humanitarian law, to demand strict compliance with them, including any assistance to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international humanitarian organizations working in southeast Ukraine, and to demand prevention of any actions which would prevent humanitarian staff from fulfilling their duties," Lavrov said.
Russia has "deliberately formulated its initiative in a depoliticized way by aiming it at taking measures that will immediately alleviate the sufferings of the civilians, at compliance with the Geneva Statement and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) roadmap, which gained broad international support," the Russian foreign minister stressed.
"And we hope that such a humanitarian nature of our initiative will be correctly perceived by the UN SC and our resolution accepted for immediate processing," the Russian foreign minister said.
