Interfax: “Lavrov: Moscow has information foreign forces push for Kyiv’s economic siege on Donbas”

BASEL. Dec 5 (Interfax) – There is information that foreign forces have pushed for Kyiv’s economic siege on southeastern Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“I really do not want to suspect anyone but there is information that such an aggressive treatment of the aforementioned territories has been encouraged from abroad,” Lavrov said at a press conference on Friday after a session of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Basel.

“I do not know its purpose but there can be only one explanation: somebody needs this abscess not to scar over,” the minister added.

Moscow was surprised by the decision of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to cut off southeastern Ukraine from the economic and financial system of the country, Lavrov said. “In fact, the Kyiv authorities which are insisting on their territorial integrity for some reason are severing these regions from the country’s economic and financial organism,” Lavrov said.

“We are pointing this out to our Ukrainian partners and believe that economic relations should be strengthened in every way instead. Militia-controlled territories need electricity and gas. And they have coal needed by the rest of Ukraine. In my opinion, this is a completely mutually advantageous and obvious situation,” the Russian foreign minister said.

[featured image is file photo]