Interfax: Russian diplomat likes U.S. warning to Ukrainian leadership
(Interfax – Moscow, May 13, 2015)
The warning given by US Secretary of State John Kerry to official Kiev not to try to capture Donetsk airport by force attests to the fact that Washington’s efforts for Ukrainian settlement are starting to have future, according to deputy director of the information and press department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mariya Zakharova.
“It seemed to me that Mr Kerry very firmly and unambiguously spoke about possible plans, if Kiev has them, regarding some kind of armed revanches and recapturing something that had been lost in battle,” she said on Kommersant FM radio station.
“It is important that the US efforts in the sphere of the Ukrainian crisis and a possible solution to it following these statements are actually starting to have a future,” the Russian diplomat continued.
She also called on Ukrainian authorities not to divide the population of the country into their own and not their own.
“If they think that this is a single country then all the land is also theirs: not only Kiev, not only Donetsk and Luhansk but all the land is theirs. And all people are theirs and one cannot divide them either,” Zakharova explained.
“And you (leader of Ukraine – Interfax) have to understand that this is your responsibility and statements that we will liberate Donetsk airport because this is our land – after statements of this kind one winces not just in Donetsk and Luhansk but one winces in Berlin, Washington and Paris,” she added.
The diplomat noted that the words by [Ukrainian President] Petro Poroshenko about Donetsk airport were voiced a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Russia, during which she stressed that there were no alternatives to a peaceful settlement.
“And the next day, as some kind of international trolling, Kiev made a statement that we understood everything and we heard everything and will recapture the airport. Well, these things are not acceptable,” Zakharova said.
Zakharova also said that John Kerry flew to Sochi on his own initiative.
“I am not hiding the fact that he has expressed a wish to do this in the recent times. Information about his intention to visit Russia even leaked to the press. However, at the last moment he changed his mind. But this time Kerry said and Kerry did. This time the visit took place,” she said.
“We are very glad that this became indeed a constructive and interesting conversation, somewhere also theoretical, somewhere maybe even with historical excursions as we continue to have disagreements particularly regarding the genesis of crises,” the Russian diplomat added.
[Passage omitted: At news conference in Sochi, Kerry warned Poroshenko against renewing use of force on the territory of Ukraine.]