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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's comment for the media following Government Hour, Moscow, December 1, 2021

1 December 202118:10
2478-01-12-2021

Question: You have several times answered questions regarding the settlement of the internal Ukrainian crisis. Earlier today, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave interesting figures: Kiev has sent 125,000 soldiers and officers to Donbass, or almost half of the Ukrainian armed forces. Please, comment on these figures and the Kiev authorities' actions.

Sergey Lavrov: This information surfaced a long time ago. We drew the attention of the OSCE, through its Special Monitoring Mission, as well as Germany, France and other Western countries, using our bilateral contacts with them, to the fact that the Ukrainian authorities were actively sending trains with troops and military hardware to the line of contact. Initially, this was explained by the need to rotate servicemen after they had done a stint in the area. However, it turned out that additional troops are being sent there and those who are supposed to be rotated out of the area are not going anywhere. This is alarming. I believe our Western partners know all about this. Ukraine does nothing without notifying them and securing support from them. Tomorrow, this will be one of the issues I will be discussing with my Western colleagues at the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Stockholm. I will ask them about their view of what is happening.

Question: What is Moscow's reaction to what Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview about him recognising Crimea as part of Russia? Does Moscow expect Minsk to formalise this recognition? What would Belarus have to do?

Sergey Lavrov: Nothing needs to be done. No laws need to be passed. Belarus maintains not only diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation but an alliance. Even countries which do not have relations like these with Russia do not need to adopt any special legislative acts.

States maintaining relations with us must recognise as a matter of course that Russia has a territory of its own where existing government and executive bodies exercise authority. If this was not clear enough already, Alexander Lukashenko said explicitly that Crimea is part of Russia and it has always been de facto, while it became part of Russia de jure after the 2014 referendum.