Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the Ukraine crisis
The criminal Kiev regime keeps attacking Russian cities and villages using large-calibre artillery, attack drones and cluster munitions supplied by NATO countries. These daily, reckless actions cause death among civilians, including children, the destruction of civilian infrastructure including residences, schools, hospitals and kindergartens.
On August 9 alone, four people were killed by strikes in Donetsk and Svetlodarsk, including a girl born in 2019, and 12 people were wounded, among them a teenager born in 2006. Civilians continue to fall victim to the Lepestok anti-personnel mines scattered by the Ukrainian Nazis. As of August 15, there were reports of 126 civilians affected by mine explosions, 11 of them children. Three people died as a result of sustained wounds. On August 15 and 16, the Russian law-enforcers thwarted attempts by Ukrainian saboteurs to trespass into the Bryansk Region.
Zelensky’s regime actively employs drones for terrorist attacks. On August 12, the Ukrainian neo-Nazis attempted to strike the Crimean Bridge with a drone, and later that night launched 20 drones in a terrorist attack on targets in Crimea. On August 13, a UAF drone hit a block of flats in Belgorod wounding a 10-year-old girl who was walking in the courtyard at the time. On August 17, Ukrainian armed units tried an unsuccessful attack with an unmanned motor boat against Black Sea ships which were controlling navigation in the south-western part of the Black Sea 237 kilometres from Sevastopol.
The Zelensky regime’s attempt to strike the centre of Moscow last night is further proof of the criminal nature of the regime. Thanks to well-coordinated air defences, there were no victims or significant damage.
The Russian Investigative Committee is investigating all cases of strikes against Russian regions by Ukrainian militants as well as their other crimes. Based on submitted evidence, Russian courts have handed down sentences to the Ukrainian neo-Nazis who used prohibited methods in an armed conflict, killed wounded POWs and committed crimes against civilians, including murders due to political or ideological hatred. In the past two weeks alone, 15 servicemen, among them five members of the Azov Battalion nationalist unit (banned in Russia and designated a terrorist organisation), A. Kilyushik, N. Kushch, A. Bogdan, P. Artemenko and A. Romanyuk, were sentences to various prison terms from 15 years to life in prison. It is impossible to bring the people they mauled, shot down or burned back to life, but the Russian Federation will do whatever is necessary to bring just retribution to all Nazi raiders for the crimes they committed. We urge those Ukrainian servicemen who, we believe, understand the entire criminal nature of the gangster junta which has seized their country, to turn their weapons against their Nazi regime or to surrender to our troops. In such cases we guarantee humane treatment to all of them.
We have taken note of a draft law on amendments to the Law on National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine registered in the Verkhovna Rada on August 13. We have commented on this law more than once. Adopted by the Ukrainian parliament in December 2022, this law was not properly discussed with representatives of the national minorities and does not conform to Kiev’s international commitments. Its discriminatory essence is so obvious that it was criticised not only by Hungary and Romania that have large communities of compatriots in Ukraine but even by Council of Europe institutions that typically ignore almost all the lawlessness committed by the Kiev regime. The superficial remarks by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, expressed in its June review on this law, led to hypocritical cosmetic edits that Ukrainian lawmakers made with the sole purpose of reporting the changes to their Western curators.
The suggested amendments do not expand in any way the rights and freedoms of people that are part of national minorities. On the contrary, the first page of the draft law makes it clear that they can be restricted as is actually happening in reality. Discrimination against ethnic Russians remains legally fixed. This means that millions of native inhabitants of the former Soviet Ukraine are denied any protection of their rights. Moreover, there is a new item introducing additional restrictions on the Russian language.
In this way, the Kiev regime is again demonstrating its Nazi essence. It is not only conducting a de facto policy of segregation but also officially recording it in government legal regulations.
There were media reports of an initiative in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to give up the Izhitsa Cyrillic font. It has been broadly used until today but has now fallen under criticism. The problem is that it was designed in the Soviet Union in 1982 by Svetlana Yermolayeva based on the ancient Slavic alphabet. She was inspired by the drawings of the typesetting semi-post of the Printing Office of the Russian Empire Academy of Sciences dating to the late 19th century. It was suggested that Izhitsa be replaced by the Volya (Will) font. Its main asset is that it was designed by Ukrainian nationalists. Apparently, in their Russophobic fervor, the Kiev authorities hope they can please their Western bosses even more by denying their Slavic roots.
The Ukrainian authorities continue their war against the canonic Orthodox Church. On August 9, the Kiev Commercial Court satisfied a lawsuit by the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Historical and Cultural Reserve against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the removal of obstacles to using the Lavra’s property. This allowed the Kiev regime to legitimise the raider’s assault on the Lavra – on August 15, the police seized three of its buildings. After this, Deputy Defence Minister Anna Malyar blasphemously stated that this Orthodox shrine would become a place for rehabilitating militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
By expelling the canonic church from its tenement, the Kiev regime is fulfilling the Anglo-Saxon order to destroy Orthodox culture. It is no accident that the West continues to cynically avoid condemning their proteges’ actions. The international community and the relevant organisations are shamefully silent as well.
The Kiev elite are parasitizing not only their own compatriots but also American taxpayers. Recently presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in his interview that at a time when Washington’s expenses on aid to Ukraine amounted to $130 billion, 15 million Americans do not have medical insurance and 30 million are deprived of food stamps. Nevertheless, on August 14, the Pentagon announced yet another $200 million package of military aid for Ukraine. It will include, among other things, ammunition for Patriot surface-to-air missile systems, HIMARS MLRSs, other artillery weapons, tanks and anti-tank missile systems. Since the start of Joseph Biden’s Presidency the overall amount of US military assistance to Ukraine has exceeded $43.7 billion. In addition, on August 10, the White House asked Congress to approve the allocation of additional $24 billion for aid to Ukraine, of which $13.1 billion is military assistance.
Western private capital holdings are making a lot of money on the conflict in Ukraine. According to the media, the British military concern ВАЕ SYSTEMS received orders worth 21 billion pounds sterling in the last six months of 2023. New hardware will replace obsolete models sent to Ukraine that were slated for disposal. It transpired recently that the German defence concern Rheinmetall purchased 50 Leopard-1 tanks from Belgian OIP Land Systems. These tanks were awaiting disposal but now the company plans to repair them and send them to Kiev.
All these facts show that the lives and destinies of millions of Ukrainian citizens mean nothing to the puppet Kiev regime or its Western bosses. Polish President Andrzej Duda told a journalist from the Washington Post: “Right now, Russian imperialism can be stopped cheaply, because American soldiers are not dying.” We hope such revelations will help the people of Ukraine finally realise that they are being shamelessly used as a cheap tool for implementing the West’s globalist plans.
