Russian ambassador in UN: West bears almost full responsibility for Ukraine escalation

If current crisis in Ukraine develops according to the worst scenario Western countries will bear responsibility “by 99%” for this, Russian Permanent Representative in the United Nations Organisation Vitaly Churkin said on Sunday.

“I believe that our Western partners will be responsible for this by 99%,” he told reporters after a meeting of the UN Security Council. The diplomat warned that the decision of Kiev authorities to hold combat actions in south-eastern Ukraine “will entail the hardest consequences and will lead to escalation and a deeper crisis in Ukraine.” Vitaly Churkin said with hope that Kiev’s patrons would not permit this scenario.

“I would like to hope that as a result of quite difficult debates in the UN Security Council our Western partners will think about how high their responsibility for current events and will warn those politicians in Kiev who do not take any serious steps without consent from Western capitals from fulfilment of this insane plan,” he added.

West's possibility to avert a civil war

He added, "A very dangerous situation has taken shape" in Ukraine's south-east. "A further escalation of it must be prevented without delay". He said, "The Western sponsors of the Maidan protestesf, including the United States "have got to hold in check their fosterlings that have run out of conrol and make them dissociate themselves from the neonazis and other extremists, stop using armed forces against the Ukrainian people, and immediately to launch a truly nation-wide dialogue, with an equal participation of all regions in the interests of effecting a radical constitutional reform as soon as possible."

"It is precisely on the West that the possibility to avert a civil war in Ukraine is depending now,"  Churkin pointed out. He called on the West to cease looking for a "hand of Moscow" in the developments in Ukraine's south-east. "Stop doing that. Stop spreading yarns to the effect that we have concentrated large military forces on the border with that country, the forces that are ostensibly prepared within hours to reach nearly the English Channel. It is time realize that people in south-eastern Ukraine are deeply concerned for their future and they do not want anyone, still less the unbridled national-radicals to impose their will on them," the diplomat said.