Interfax: Western media coverage of Ukraine “perverted” – Lavrov

BAGHDAD. Feb 20 (Interfax) – Moscow is concerned by how the West has been trying to impact on the situation in Ukraine, and also notes that the situation in this country is being misrepresented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“We are most deeply concerned by what is going on in Ukraine, and in particular by how Western capitals have been trying to comment and influence on this situation,” he told a press conference in Baghdad.

“The Western media coverage of the situation is extremely perverted,” the minister said.

“They have been peddling simple formulas such as “The West is calling on the government to stay away from Maidan’, although they choose not to say what Maidan amounts to,” Lavrov said.

Western media outlets maintain silence over the instances of violence against governors in various Ukrainian regions, and about attempts to attack weapon storage facilities, and urge only the government to stop violence against peaceful demonstrators, he said.

“Both the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian president have more than once demonstrated their good will and proposed a compromise. In particular, they agreed to free those arrested in Maidan in exchange for the freeing of the occupied administrative buildings. The government has honored its part of the agreements, but the opposition have disrupted theirs,” the Russian minister said.

“In Western reports from the scene you will hardly find a mention of the organization such as Right Sector which openly stated that it will cooperate neither with the government, nor the opposition, and that this movement will operate in a way it sees fit. And they operate by using radical extremist methods, including regular use of force,” the Russian foreign minister said.

“The opposition is either unable or reluctant to distance itself from extremists,” he said.