Russia will not wage war against Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station on Monday.
"We will not wage war with Ukraine, I promise you," he said.
Donbass republics
If Russia recognizes the self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) it will spoil relations with Ukraine, Lavrov said on radio station Komsomolskaya Pravda live, answering the question about why Russia does not recognize the DPR and LPR.
"Do you want to recognize the LPR and DPR? And what’s next? To lose the rest of Ukraine and leave it to the nazis?" he said.
Provocation near Crimea
Ukraine’s authorities are planning to carry out an armed provocation on the border with Crimea in the last ten days of December, he said.
"[Ukrainian President Pyotr] Poroshenko is planning an armed provocation on the border with Russia, on the border with Crimea during the last ten days of December," Lavrov said.
Russia will respond to Ukraine, if Kiev carries out a provocation on the border with Crimea, Lavrov stressed. "They will regret it. This is our country, this is our border. We will not allow him [Poroshenko] to try to somehow protect his interests, the way he sees it, and violate those rights, which Crimeans protected in full accordance with international law," Lavrov said.
According to Russia’s data, Poroshenko has been discussing the upcoming provocation on the border with Crimea with his Western sponsors. "They advise him to keep low intense combat actions to enable them to go ahead with propaganda that Russians are carrying out an offensive against Ukraine and that’s why Russia needs to be hit by sanctions, but military actions should never switch into a phase that will be followed by full-scale responses," Lavrov stressed.
Russia’s top diplomat emphasized that Kiev’s provocations are ongoing. "Our respective services are making all necessary efforts to thwart these incidents."
Minsk accords
The Minsk agreements are the only way of overcoming the crisis in the Donbass region, he said.
"There is no alternative to the Minsk agreements," the minister stressed. "I said the same thing the year before last as well."
In response to a journalist’s remark that the Minsk agreements are allegedly not working, he said, "The UN Charter has likewise been violated on numerous occasions, and it is does not work many times either. However, it is impermissible to give in to panic."
Ukrainian regime
Lavrov said the current Ukrainian regime is similar to that of neo-Nazis.
"We are not fighting against the Ukrainian regime. These are Ukrainian citizens living in Donbass, who are fighting against the Ukrainian regime, which has all characteristics of Nazis and neo-Nazis," Lavrov said.
When asked why Moscow is not severing ties with Kiev, Lavrov stressed: "We have relations with the Ukrainian state, the Ukrainian state is much more and more important for us than that regime, which is currently in power thanks to the West’s betrayal of all norms of the international law and international behavior."
"The Ukrainian people have nothing to do with it, and I’m sure that most Ukrainian citizens wish peace to their country and want it to get rid of this shameful regime and resume normal ties with Russia," he said.
To this aim, Ukraine’s domestic problems need to be settled, which are "much broader and deeper than simply the Lugansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic.".
