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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks during talks with Foreign Minister of the Lugansk People's Republic Vladislav Deinego and First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic Sergey Peresada, Moscow, February 25, 2022

25 February 2022 14:01
359-25-02-2022

Mr Deinego,

Mr Peresada,

Just a few days have passed since the landmark event when the Russian Federation recognised the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic as sovereign, independent states, drawing the line under the eight long years of suffering for the people of Donbass.

All these years, the Kiev regime with its openly Russophobic and genocidal policy scoffed at the people from your republics, targeting them with its firepower year after year. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk referred to the people of Donbass as "non-humans." President Vladimir Zelensky picked up this baton not that long ago. He called your people a "species" and demanded that all who identify as Russian or related to the Russian culture or language get out of Ukraine and move to the Russian Federation. All these years, our Western colleagues have consistently protected the Ukrainian regime by turning a blind eye to war crimes against civilians, the killing of women, children, the elderly, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Through their silence, they encouraged the onset of rampant neo-Nazism and Russophobia, which in the end resulted in tragedy for the country.

The West has fully sided with the Kiev regime in its efforts to sabotage and dismantle the Minsk agreements. NATO and the European Union sought to cover for Kiev in recent days as it made a final decision to try to take the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic by force, saying that there was no alternative to joining NATO and threatening to acquire nuclear weapons. In this situation, the Russian Federation could not remain indifferent to your states' appeals for military assistance in the face of the aggressor.

In keeping with Russia's allied commitments, President Vladimir Putin made the decision to carry out a special military operation to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine so that Ukrainians could choose their future in freedom once they had freed themselves from this yoke.

This is our first meeting today. We will focus on practical matters arising from the treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between the Russian Federation and your countries.