Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the West is concealing the true causes of the tragic events in Odessa on May 2 which left at least 46 people killed, and that the investigation will eventually die off. "Although the West condemns the Odessa tragedy, it is turning a blind eye on its true causes, the way the policy of legalizing Bandera's and Shukhevych's legacy and atrocities in the guise of 'new Ukrainian patriotism' was silenced during Yuschenko and his team's tenure," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers in Vienna on May 6.
The text of Lavrov’s speech was provided to journalists.
“The Kyiv leadership pronounced incoherent condolences, declared mourning and started an investigation. But few will be surprised if this investigation falls apart, as the probe into the February sniper shooting in the Ukrainian capital city did,” Lavrov said.
“The current Kyiv leadership, which toppled the legitimate authorities on extremist bayonets, cannot or does not want to calm down the Right Sector and its like, and it trampled the February 21 agreement on crisis settlement under feet,” Lavrov said.
“Instead of honoring its obligation to disarm the illegal formations, the coalition, formed by the Verkhovna Rada, is shaping a national guard out of the extremists who conduct punitive operations jointly with the armed forces in southeastern Ukraine,” the Russian foreign minister said.
“The coalition members representing the Svoboda Party publicly applaud the Nazi pogrom in Odessa, brand all Russian-speaking citizens ‘enemies’ and ‘occupiers,’ and demand that they be eliminated. The same fate was in store for Crimea, but its multiethnic people rose and defended their future with Russia’s support,” he said.
