MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti) – The UN report on the human rights situation in Ukraine contains few facts and Russia’s efforts to take in refugees are being ignored, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Friday.
“The authors of this document continue to follow their chosen approach to the tragedy in eastern Ukraine. Facts on the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border are extremely fleeting. Russia, as you know, has, as a gesture of good intentions, invited OSCE observers to monitor [the border] and they have not registered any breaches from the Russian side. But just the opposite, namely Russian territory was attacked several times from the Ukrainian side, which has led to human victims,” Lukashevich said.
The Russian spokesman said that because of the punitive operations by Kiev, according to UN agencies, hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled to Russia, but the report completely ignores Russia’s efforts to take care of them.
On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. According to the report, “at least 36 people are being killed on average every day.”
“The number of casualties has more than doubled in total since the last report issued one month ago. As of 17 August, the total number of people killed (civilians, military personnel and some members of armed groups) is at least 2,220 since the fighting began in mid-April.3 At least 5,956 people have been wounded,” the reports said.
Since mid-April, Ukrainian forces have been fighting independence supporters in the east of the country who refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government that came to power after a February 22 coup.
Moscow has labelled the operation “punitive” and called on the warring sides to halt the confrontation and cease the bloodshed. Russia also sent a humanitarian convoy to eastern Ukraine under the auspices of the Red Cross to help the local civilian population suffering from the conflict.
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