Moscow (AP) – Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced a press conference by his UN ambassador in New York for the evening when a large number of bodies were found in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
Evidence would be presented that shows the “true nature of those events that our Western partners are now trying to interpret as evidence of war crimes by the Russian Federation in the city of Bucha,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow on Monday.
He also accused Britain of boycotting attempts by Russia to raise the Bucha case at a Security Council meeting. According to Russian information, the press conference in New York is scheduled for 21:30 CEST.
Ukraine accuses Russia of massacres
Ukraine has accused the Russian army of massacring civilians in Bucha near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. There, many bodies were found on the street. Russia categorically rejects this and speaks of a “staging”. Such accusations as in the Bucha case must be made “on the basis of concrete, irrefutable facts,” Lavrov said. He in turn accused the Ukrainian armed forces, led by “nationalist, neo-Nazi battalions,” of committing crimes that needed to be prosecuted.
At the same time, Lavrov said that negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian sides to end the fighting continued “intensely”. He called on the government in Kyiv to be guided by its own national interests. Ukraine shouldn’t listen to its advisers abroad, Lavrov said, referring to the US, without naming them. Moscow has repeatedly accused Washington of using Ukraine as a tool to destabilize Russia. Lavrov said that people there are watching “how the crisis situation continues to escalate here.”
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