Lavrov Regrets That EU Supported the Coup in Ukraine, and Then Hit Russia with Sanctions

March 4, 2020 (EIRNS)—During a joint press conference in Helsinki yesterday with Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented the fact that the European Union has supported the government coup in Ukraine. “We favor the normalization of relations between Russia and the European Union,” he said. “We find it regrettable that the EU opted for introducing sanctions against Russia after, in fact, it reconciled itself with and supported the February 2014 government coup in Ukraine,” he stated. Lavrov recalled that “many Western analysts are now publishing facts that explain how the 2014 government coup in Ukraine had been plotted and staged.”

“I believe that in any case the European values the EU professes do not imply connivance with theultra-radicals and neo-Nazis or tacit consent with the reforms that are being implemented in Ukraine in crude violation of the rights of ethnic minorities, first and foremost, those in the language and education spheres,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov also complained that Germany and France, the other two nations in the Normandy Four format in addition to Russia and Ukraine, have done little to motivate Kiev to abide by the Minsk agreements for reconciliation between Kiev and the self-proclaimed republics in Donbas. “There are no alternatives to the Minsk agreements,” he said. Lavrov stated that Vadym Prystaiko, the Ukrainian foreign minister, has thrown out a lot of ideas that run counter to the agreements, such as dissolving the two breakaway republics in Donetsk and Luhansk, sending in UN peacekeepers and so on. “I have referred several appeals to the foreign ministers of Germany and France, as the members of the Normandy Four format, calling on them not to ignore such provocative statements by Ukrainian officials. But so far, our Normandy format partners are undertaking nothing in that regard,” Lavrov said.

“Moreover, our French and German colleagues, as a matter of fact, are doing nothing to prod their Ukrainian partners to implement what was agreed at the Normandy Four summit in December in Paris. Instead, they focus on convening another summit of the Normandy Four as a goal in itself, regardless of whether the previous agreements are fulfilled or not. We don’t need such empty summits. We have told our partners about that.”