You're reading: Deschytsia raises issue of Russian agents in southeast with Lavrov

Ukraine's Acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deschytsia and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by telephone to discuss preparations for the meeting of the Russian, Ukrainian, U.S. and EU foreign-policy chiefs in Geneva on April 17.

“Deschytsia demanded an end to the provocative activity by Russian special agents in the eastern regions of Ukraine, aimed, according to Ukraine, at disrupting the Geneva meeting and the search for ways of resolving the crisis in the Ukrainian-Russian relations,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

Yesterday Lavrov dismissed rumors that there could be Russian agents and troops in southeast Ukraine. “We have neither our troops nor agents there. We are being accused of having some of our security agents there. None of them are there. Nor are there any of our troops there by definition,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Sunday Night With Vladimir Solovyov program on the Rossiya One television channel.