Why Russia Attacked Ukraine: In Russia’s Own Words

Russia says Ukraine has been committing “genocide” on Russians in disputed Ukrainian regions.

QUICK FACTS:
  • Moscow has repeatedly urged Western nations to pressure Ukraine to stop the shelling of the disputed Donbass republics, regions inhabited by Russian and pro-Russian civilians, Sputnik reports.
  • Russia asked Ukraine to cease bombarding Donbass days before it commenced military operations in the region on Thursday.
  • The separatists accused Ukrainian government forces of opening fire on their territory four times within a 24-hour time period, while Ukraine accused the rebels of firing shells, Reuters reported on Feb 17.
  • “Armed forces of Ukraine have crudely violated the ceasefire regime, using heavy weapons, which, according to the Minsk agreements, should be withdrawn,” the separatists said in a statement.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has condemned the West for defending Ukrainian leadership, saying the West is “turning a blind eye” to Ukraine’s “war crimes” against civilians in the country’s east.
  • Lavrov stressed that nations in the West have been covering for Kiev, even as Ukrainian leadership decided to take the Donbass people’s republics by force, declared a resolve to join NATO, and threatened to build nuclear weapons.
RUSSIA SAYS THE WEST HAS IGNORED “GENOCIDE” COMMITTED BY UKRAINE:
  • Western nations “have been turning a blind eye to war crimes against the civilian population, to the murders of women, children, the elderly, to the destruction of civilian infrastructure and silently encouraging the rapid emergence of neo-Nazism and Russophobia [in Ukraine], which ultimately plunged the country into its current tragic state,” Lavrov argued.
  • The foreign minister went on to criticize the West for “unanimously” denying that a “genocide” of Russians was taking place in Ukraine, where Kiev’s forces have been waging a war against and killing the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), according to Sputnik.
BACKGROUND:
  • The Kremlin has also condemned the West’s failure to convince Ukrainian leaders to fulfill the Minsk agreements, which had obligated Ukraine to peace in Donbass.
  • The Minsk deal “outlines moves to declare a ceasefire, withdraw weapons, declare amnesty, restore economic ties and conduct constitutional reform in Ukraine through dialogue with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR, LPR), aimed at decentralizing power and providing a special status to certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions,” The Russian News Agency (TASS) explains.
  • “However, the negotiation process has actually stalled because of Kiev’s refusal to fulfill the political provisions of the Minsk accords,” TASS added. “In particular, Kiev rejects holding any direct dialogue with the DPR and the LPR, opposes the consolidation of the regions’ special status in the constitution, and also demands that a section of the border with Russia in Donbass be placed under Ukrainian control until the political part of the deal is implemented.”
  • Foreign Minister Lavrov also announced that Russia will be organizing a special photo gallery at the United Nations for the participants of a new session of the UN Human Rights Council.
  • The gallery will be devoted to the situation in the Donbass region and the suffering of its residents, Sputnik reports.

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