Lavrov: Russia is not clean and we are not ashamed to show it

2022-06-17 08:02:44Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Lavrov: Russia is not clean and we are not ashamed to show it
BBC journalist and Sergei Lavrov

Since the Russian military invaded Ukraine nearly four months ago, thousands of civilians have been killed and entire cities turned into rubble as millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes.

But on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said things were not as they seemed. "We did not invade Ukraine," he told the BBC.

"We announced a special military operation because we had absolutely no other way to explain to the West that Ukraine's membership in NATO was a criminal act," Lavrov said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Lavrov has given only a few interviews to Western media, abcnews.al reports.

He reiterated the Kremlin's official line that there were Nazis in Ukraine. Russian officials often claim that their army is "de-Nazifying" the country, writes BBC.

Lavrov caused a stir recently when he tried to justify a statement to the Nazis about the Ukrainian president, who is Jewish, making the ridiculous claim that Adolf Hitler had "Jewish blood."

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg quoted him as saying in an interview a United Nations official report on the Ukrainian village of Yahidne in the Chernihiv region that "360 people, including 74 children and five people with disabilities, were forced to flee Russian armed forces to stay for 28 days in the basement of a school… There were no toilets, water 10 10 elderly people died ".

"Is this a war against the Nazis?" "It's a great pity," Lavrov said, "but international diplomats, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Secretary-General and other UN representatives, are being put under pressure. pressure from the West. "And very often they are being used to reinforce the false news spread by the West."

"Russia is not clean. Russia is what it is. "We are not ashamed to show who we are," Lavrov said.

Lavrov, 72, has represented Russia on the international stage for the past 18 years, but now internationals have imposed sanctions on him and his daughter.

The US has accused him of pursuing a false narrative of Ukraine as an aggressor and of direct responsibility for the invasion of Russia as a member of its Security Council.


Video