PRESS RELEASE

Lavrov Wants an Explanation: Why Was CIA Head Brennan in Kiev?

April 15, 2014 (EIRNS)—After leaks from the Russian media that CIA chief John Brennan was in Kiev over April 12-13, the very same time that the Kiev usurpers were threatening a violent crackdown on anti-coup demonstrators in the Eastern part of Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov raised a direct question to the U.S. government about the matter.

We would like to understand what reports about the CIA Director Mr. Brennan's urgent trip to Kiev could mean. We have not received any reasonable explanation so far," Lavrov said. That formulation strongly suggests that Russia has asked the U.S. government for an explanation, but has not received a satisfactory response.

Given the flap that had been created, the White House, which had previously said it didn't comment on the travels of the CIA Director, then admitted that Brennan had indeed been in Kiev.

Deposed Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, speaking to the press in Rostov-on-Don April 14, charged that Brennan had indeed met with Ukraine's new leadership and "in fact sanctioned the use of weapons and provoked bloodshed‚" and that with this "Ukraine made the first step toward civil war," Russia-24 TV reported.

Lavrov stated April 14: "The decision to apply military force is an extremely dangerous development. Those who encourage such actions in Kiev should be held responsible to the full extent."

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement issued the same day denounced the announcement by illegitimate Ukrainian president Turchynov that "large-scale anti-terrorist operations" would be undertaken if the protesters did not abandon the buildings they had seized, as a "criminal order" adding that "It is the West that now has the ability to prevent the civil war in Ukraine... The Western sponsors of Maidan... must rein in their unruly charges, force them to cut all ties with neo-Nazi and other extremist groups, cease using armed forces against the Ukrainian people." The Russian statement denounced Kiev for threatening violence "against anyone who does not agree with the nationalist-radicals, chauvinistic and anti-Semitic actions" in Kiev that are being carried out "with direct support from the United States and Europe."